Snooze, an A.M. Eatery — Restaurant in Chapel Hill

My girl & I had been looking for a good breakfast spot in Chapel Hill where we could get quality Benedicts, and we finally found 1: Snooze, one of the newer locations at Eastgate, a shopping area that gets a lot of foot traffic even on weekday brunch times. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait to be seated at Snooze on a busy Wednesday brunch time.

We were taken to a small table that's pretty close to an occupied table with 2 people in a cramped area; Despite Snooze's large and open space with a nice outdoor seating and a bar (probably the largest restaurant in Eastgate), it seems that there is a spacing issue, and it looks like there was only 1 waitress assigned to our section. She said her name is Baj, and I'll talk about her customer service later, but first: the food!

I ordered the Barbacoa Chile Verde Benny & my girl ordered the Smashed Avocado Benny & we got a blueberry pancake for us to share. Orders arrived in about 12 min., which is relatively fast considering Snooze's busy brunch time.

It was my first time trying a Benny with Barbacoa (shredded beef - Mexican barbecue style), and the meat tasted as what I expected from a Barbacoa dish, and there was a fine amount in my Benny. Instead of English muffin, this one has a layer of tortilla in the bottom. The green chile sauce, melted cheese. green chile hollandaise, pico de gallo & cotija cheese all create a Mexican twist to a typical Benedict, but after trying this, I think I still prefer a typical Benny with ham, English muffin, etc,.

There was issue in my order: 1 of the 2 eggs it came with was cooked too long, so it's more like a hard-boiled egg than a poached one, so I told Baj about it, and a manager came to check what the problem was. She asked what wanted, replacing the one wrongly-cooked egg is just fine, and she said they could do that, so I received the 1 replacement egg. I ended up eating that 1 egg by itself because I already devoured the rest of the Benny while waiting.

Other than that mistake, the brunch Bennys were generally satisfying with a healthy amount of well-baked hashbrowns on the side. My girl enjoyed her Smashed Avocado Benny, which looked quite healthy, with large slices of tomatoes, just the right amount of avocado & everything else. The $6+ blueberry pancake we shared was fine but they did not serve enough syrup, and the server did not even bother to ask if we need anything else, so we weren't able to ask for more.

Snooze's customer service clearly needs improvement. While server Baj seemed friendly at first, she didn't accommodate our needs well - we had to call her to get water refills and ketchup for our hashbrowns. Not even once did she ask if we needed anything else like that pancake syrup! As for our bill, she just silently placed it on our table, making us wonder what she just put, while she took orders from the customers beside us. When we were ready to pay, she just put the payment device in front of us, and she seemed to be more cheerful doing that than actually serving us well. I was thankful that she called the manager about the egg issue, and that the manager was able to resolve it well, but overall, the customer service is just disappointing.

It's not easy to find a good Benny in Chapel Hill, so I still think it's a blessing to have Snooze, a nice brunch spot with quality breakfast and a vibrant ambiance. If you prefer alcohol with your brunch, Snooze's bartender can serve that to your table. The outdoor seating is also nice but there were no customers there despite the short line of waiting ones while we were seated there. I wouldn't say that we will never return here, but probably not anytime soon. We are willing to go farther to get a better breakfast/brunch experience with professional customer service.

Overall...

Wow! Snooze is exactly what the Durham-Chapel Hill area needed. My fiancé and I were eagerly anticipating the opening as we had previously been impressed by the Snooze location in Charlotte. We were fortunate enough to visit the Eastgate Snooze on the morning of their first day of soft opening, and it was a 10/10 experience in terms of ambiance, food, and service.

It was a little cold to sit outside, but the outdoor patio area is beautifully furnished (and maybe had heat lamps?). The interior is very cute, with a modern and fun vibe. We sat in a booth, and even though there was a lot of noise (the restaurant was packed), I could hear my fiancé easily across the booth.

Because it was soft opening and supposed to be training for the staff/servers, the meal was comped. Honestly, the food and service were awesome, and the experience would’ve been well worth what the bill would have been. The menu options are unique and a departure from the typical offerings in the area, filled with interesting and fun things like cider braised pork belly, pancake flights with upside down pineapple pancakes, and breakfast pasta. We each got honey oat milk lattes, I had the monte cristo brioche toast, and my fiancé had the spuds deluxe. The drinks were delicious, with a full-bodied espresso flavor and not too sweet. Our food was perfectly seasoned and flavored, and portion sizes were great. I especially loved the Dijon citronette dressing for my greens.

Alyssa was our server (and accompanied by another server trainee whose name we didn’t catch) and she was great! Obviously all the serving staff was especially engaged due to the soft opening, but our waters were constantly refilled, and someone even came by to offer snacks because things were going slowly in the kitchen (we really weren’t waiting that long).

We already know we’ll be back almost every weekend. What a...

This restaurant was hyped up from the local Instagram influencers. Tried it out and regret driving from Rolesville to Chapel Hill. First issue, the wait list. Name was placed on wait list at 11:30a, but was not seated until after 1p. When placed on waitlist was told the wait would be 30 minutes. The management and staff lack compassion for customers. When we arrived at 12p, we asked if we could sit at the bar. Was told that no bar service was happening due to there only being 1 barista that day. However, when we were finally seated, management opened the bar seating to help get customers in and out before the establishment closed for the day. This was a complete slap in the face as our time and wait was not considered. The food was mediocre at best. I ordered the corned beef hash and it was a complete waste of money. Let me tell you what this dish truly is: hash browns with a few chunks of corned beef. That is not hash- that’s hash browns with a small enhancement. The hash browns could have been cooked longer to actually have a bit of crisp. After all that waiting, they got a dish wrong and we had to wait more time to get the correct order. The pancakes were on the crispy side. Some may like that, but I prefer fluffy pancakes. The coffee and mocktails were not desirable. The cups smelled as if they were not properly washed which was a turn off from completing the beverage. There appears to be a lack of system in the restaurant with turning over tables and seating guests. We watched multiple tables remain dirty with no one cleaning them to get people seated. The restaurant gave off a vibe of “if you must eat here, we guess we will seat you”. Needless to say, will not return to this location. Establishments fail to realize that consumers have a choice where they spend their money, and this place is...