Brunch News
Dallas' brunch scene suffers jolting casualty on Greenville Avenue
In news that's shocking to fans of brunch, a Greenville Avenue restaurant that was an early brunch destination has shut brunch down, due to a lack of business.
The restaurant: The Grape, the venerable wine-centric restaurant whose brunch featured an award-winning burger that won Best Burger in Texas by Texas Monthly magazine.
The Grape remains open. It's the brunch that's gone.
In a release, co-owner Brian Luscher says that the Sunday brunch just wasn't doing enough business to make it worthwhile.
"After much consideration and some applied mathematics, I have decided to discontinue Sunday Brunch service at The Grape Restaurant. Sunday, February 24th will be our final brunch service," Luscher says in a statement.
"The Grape is doing fine," he says. "No need to jump to any conclusions or prognosticate as to our demise. I'm just making a business decision; one that we did not take lightly."
"Quite simply, we do not have the number of guests visiting us to make the work and products necessary to execute the Sunday Brunch shift result in a profit," he says. "I am not doing this to 'keep busy,' I am running a business."
This seems impossible to believe, given that every time CultureMap posts a story with "brunch" in the headline, it goes crazy. But maybe there are too many brunches. Maybe the brunch bubble has popped.
Luscher notes that "there are more restaurants offering brunch options than in the history of our vibrant, amazing and ever-growing city," he says.
"We are smack-dab in the heady days of an unprecedented period of growth in the restaurant industry," he says. "A restaurant boom. A boom that is not without its challenges or its opportunities."
In reassuring news, The Grape's hours will revert to its regular dinner seven nights a week. And they'll continue to offer the signature burger on Sunday and Monday nights on a first-come-first-served basis.
