Why are all of the Valley’s hottest new restaurants brunch spots?

Early in the afternoon on a warm but overcast spring day, under the cover of umbrellas and trees lining Thomas Road, about 30 people stand in line, waiting to step inside one of Phoenix’s busiest brunch spots. 

Sophia’s opened last December in a restored Al Beadle building in midtown Phoenix to long lines and plenty of online buzz, gassed up by a viral video showcasing the brunch counter’s 3D cube of dulce de leche-stuffed French toast.

Jenny Guzman found out about Sophia’s on Instagram. Before she and her partner, Maggie Hoffman, lined up to check out the chic spot, Guzman set her sights on the French toast. The couple drove from their home near South Mountain to get brunch as a lazy Sunday treat before they set to work cleaning and getting ready for the week.

The pair are avid home cooks who start their days with home-brewed coffee or matcha. When they go out, they’re on the hunt for local spots with “something better or different than what we can make at home,” Hoffman says.

A Sophia’s staff member comes down the line, handing out menus for people to peruse while they wait. She informs each cluster of would-be diners that the French toast has just sold out for the day.

Guzman and Hoffman pause to confer, looking down at the menu, which features a split of breakfast and lunch plates, including breakfast fried rice, a savory corn waffle, a chocolate smoothie and a honey-dill crispy chicken sandwich.

“There’s other stuff that looks good,” Hoffman says, encouragingly.

Guzman agrees, and they debate what to order while the line moves forward. As much as Guzman wanted to try the sweet stack, she also came to check out the space, whose fluted metal exterior has the fantastical look of a spaceship that’s landed in the heart of the city. “It gives, ‘Oh my God, we’re in California, we’re in L.A.,’” Guzman says.

The airy mid-mod dining room is filled with sage-green marble counters and tabletops. The arched ceiling inside matches the curvature of the walls outside, creating the feeling of a canopy. The lush space comes alive with plants and upbeat, decade-spanning pop music.

“If a place looks friendly and welcoming, that’s a really big plus for me. If a place looks unique and different, that’s another big plus,” Guzman says. “It’s a matter of what’s going to make me feel like I’m using my time wisely.”

The evolution of the morning meal

When Dave Chamberlin and his wife, Flor Aparicio, began planning Sophia’s a few years ago, they envisioned a design-forward brunch counter that could be the go-to spot for people living and working nearby (including the team at Dave’s real estate management company, which is next door). They tapped Dave’s brother, chef and restaurateur Aaron Chamberlin, to create Sophia’s menu. 

None of them anticipated the demand from diners like Guzman and Hoffman, who would be willing to drive across town. It got to a point where neighborhood folks “can’t even eat there because the line’s too long,” Aaron Chamberlin says.

The chef is by no means new to the brunch game. He worked at Le Grande Orange and opened Phoenix Public Market with his brother in downtown Phoenix, among other concepts, before launching the popular fast-casual Taco Chelo with chef Suny Santana and artist Gennaro Garcia in 2018. 

Yet, diners’ appetite for an emerging new class of brunch restaurants has surprised the people behind them. 

“It has been crazy and has been a huge boom,” Chamberlin says. “We’ve had successful openings; we were busy out of the gate, but nothing like this.”

Valley diners didn’t just roll out of bed and discover brunch, but in the last six months the best places to eat and be seen required an alarm clock, not a reservation. This new class of brunch spots differs from the maximal, bottomless mimosa-soaked affairs that defined the last decade of brunching in Phoenix. 

Where there once would have been a bloody mary bar, there’s a coffee counter. Light smoothies and acai bowls intermingle with indulgent but familiar pancakes, burgers and house-baked pastries.

Food, like other art forms, reflects the times we live in. The old guard of brunch mirrored the rise-and-grind, work-hard, play-hard ethos that girlbossed many of us into burnouts and resets in the pandemic. 

The last wave of brunch spots could be compared to a daytime trip to the club. Now it feels like a trip to Club Med. As our post-pandemic era continues to focus on slowing down and treating yourself like you’re vacationing on the Amalfi Coast, the rising popularity of this genre of brunch was inevitable. 

Ivan O’Farrill has run Fà-me Cafe with his wife Maria since 2014. They pioneered a casual, internationally inspired brunch format in Phoenix more than a decade ago, prioritizing specialty coffee and local, organic ingredients. The O’Farrills aren’t surprised by the trend; if anything, they’re heartened.

“Breakfast wasn’t taken seriously before,” Ivan says. “People started taking breakfast seriously.”

The return of counter culture

In Phoenix, the new brunch destinations that have attracted crowds of curious diners have plenty in common — and echoes of spots like Fà-me and Ollie Vaughn’s. They prioritize cafe drinks and pastries along with European-inspired eats in relaxed atmospheres focused on slowing down rather than turning up. These new spots frequently have charming feminine names, unique designs and intimate, idyllic spaces. 

Sophia’s has the breezy appeal of a SoCal cafe. Lydia’s Kitchen, tucked inside The Frederick, boasts textured grandmacore that takes diners to a European cottage. Downtown darling Matilda’s and central Phoenix eatery Tandy’s reside in former homes. Parents linger with their toddlers on blankets in Matilda’s yard, while friends gab over brunch on the patio next to Tandy’s garden.

Food is the primary draw, but “the vibe is a big part of the reason I go to a place,” Grace Maser explains while sitting on the front porch at Matilda’s with her mom. 

“All those new places do have that aesthetic of sit down, enjoy yourself, take your time,” she says, “which is another thing, I think, pulled from European culture.”

Diners and restaurateurs have many theories about what’s led these spots to take off. Chefs and restaurant owners point to the convenience of counter-service brunch. 

Tandy Peterson drew inspiration for her all-day eatery and chocolaterie from her own experiences with Phoenix cafe culture, hanging out with friends over cocktails at Lux or coffee at 32Shea. At her Osborn Road restaurant, breakfast, brunch and lunch are ordered at the counter, whereas dinner comes with tableside service.

“It’s kind of non-committal,” says Peterson, who comes from a fine-dining background. “I don’t want a four-hour dining experience anymore. I might be somewhere for four hours, but I don’t want to be actively eating for that long.”

While many of the Valley’s hottest restaurants require planning to book a table and shelling out a small car payment for a meal and drinks, there’s a lower barrier to entry at brunch.

The menu can be as budget-conscious as a cold brew and a croissant or as spendy as a bottle of bubbles with steak and eggs. You can show up in casual yoga gear or the same finery donned at a formal high tea.

Maser, who is a private chef in Phoenix, loves the flexibility of brunch for that reason. She goes out for coffee on Friday mornings and heads to brunch with her friends every Sunday after church.

“Dinner, I always say, it’s like a production. You’ve got to get fully ready, do makeup, hair, reservations,” Maser says. “Brunch, it’s kind of accessible to everyone.” 

‘They pay attention to the details’

Longtime restaurateurs like Chamberlin and the O’Farrills say a thoughtful, curated approach is required at these new spots, not only in their design but also in their food. 

Diners we met with visited because they saw something on the menu that was familiar, with a little twist: a corn waffle with honey butter at Sophia’s, lemon ricotta pancakes at Lydia’s or Matilda’s breakfast sandwich, served on a pillowy milk bread bun that’s slathered with a Calabrian chile spread.

On another spring morning, Laura Rush waited with her husband and daughter in the courtyard outside Lydia’s. She designed the logo for the restaurant and other shops in The Fred, but this was only the Gilbert resident’s second visit. Rush says she’s been impressed by this new crop of brunch spots, including Sophia’s and Lydia’s.

“You can tell they pay attention to the details of their food,” she says. “From the moment you go in to the time you eat your food, it all feels cohesive.”

Chamberlin says customers notice details, like their use of a local butcher shop and bakery.

The drinks at these new spots aren’t an afterthought, either. Many of the new brunch restaurants making specialty lattes, matcha and smoothies got their start in the coffee world. The all-day cafe Matilda’s is the brick-and-mortar offshoot of the mobile drinks truck First Place Coffee. Lydia’s launched in part with the team from Berdena’s, which has a coffee bar across the courtyard. 

This local brunch mania arrives at a time when 66% of Americans drink coffee, an all-time high, while only 54% drink alcohol, the lowest rate since 1993. Does that mean mimosas are giving way to matcha lattes? It depends on who you ask.

“People here just love to be outside and active, and I think brunch aligns with that culture,” the private chef Maser says. “I think there’s a big shift in people not waiting to be out at night as much, drinking.”

But perhaps the appeal of these new eateries lies in their ability to cater to a wide audience. Across the lawn at Matilda’s, Mary Ambrosia and Tammy Terrio sipped espresso martinis after an early morning flight in from New Orleans.

“They’re called Second Wind,” Ambrosia says. “They are definitely going to be giving me a second wind.”

This spring, recent openings sizzled like thick-cut bacon in a pan. Summer is often a different story for restaurants. Most diners shared that they swap daytime patio dining in the winter and spring for dinners after dark in the summer. Guzman and Hoffman lock into the WNBA season and go out more to spots near the downtown arena ahead of Phoenix Mercury games. 

Places that rely on patio seating, like Sophia’s, do what they can to keep people comfortable with shade, misting fans and a self-service water station. The brunch counter has also encouraged diners to order food to-go. That was something they had to hold off on during the crush when they first opened, Aaron Chamberlin says.

The fall will show whether this new class of brunch spots has staying power that lasts beyond the hype of a buzzy opening. Restaureurs like Tandy Peterson are betting the momentum continues.

“There’s a lot more cafe culture going on right now,” she says.