Best Brunch Spots to Take Your Mom in Every State

In this light-filled dining room with exposed brick walls, butcher-block tables, and orange metal chairs, the Southern-style brunch menu includes pickled shrimp with saltine crackers, cornmeal pancakes with cucumber cream cheese and trout roe, and fried oyster Benedict.

This popular downtown “breakfast all day” brunch spot, with walls brightened by the work of local artists (and an occasional moose strolling by outside), offers the usual pancakes, French toast, and egg dishes, but adds local flair with homemade smoked sockeye salmon cakes and eggs and a reindeer sausage scramble.

This “creative a.m. eatery” advertises “Arizona’s largest Bloody Mary bar” and touts its “crazy brunch menu.” All the usual brunch fare is offered, but so are such dishes as avocado toast “Hash style” (with bacon jam, braised pork, crispy leeks, green chili hollandaise, fried eggs, and, yes avocado) and carnitas hash (Coke-braised pork with potatoes, corn, avocado, cotija cheese, green chili sauce, and corn tortillas).

Chef Joël Antunes, who had his own highly regarded restaurants in Atlanta, London, and other cities before coming to Little Rock’s historic Capital Hotel, changes the menu in this comfortable dining room frequently. Currently, besides more expected brunch dishes, it includes a duck salad tossed with Guinness honey mustard, a blackened ribeye with crawfish coleslaw and cheese grits, and a “Capital Soul Plate” including greens simmered with bacon, smoked gouda mac and cheese, and other regional specialties.

One of seven Nick’s locations in Southern California beach communities (plus inland Pasadena), this stylishly casual establishment serves what they call “weekend breakfast” from 7.30 to 11.30 on Saturdays and Sundays — call it early brunch. The choices include fried chicken and waffle with sausage gravy, short ribs Benedict, and a breakfast burrito with Nueske’s bacon, hash browns, and scrambled eggs.

Weekend brunch at this award-winning contemporary Northern Italian place includes the usual items, but also things not generally seen on brunch menus. Examples include a seasonal mushroom salad with poached egg, shirred eggs in spicy tomato ragù, and a selection of pizzas that includes one with baked eggs and Calabrian vinaigrette.

Feeding Mom is pretty much an all-day affair at this friendly restaurant in a community near Hartford, with brunch running from 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a holiday dinner starting up at 3 p.m. and going till 9 p.m. Rotisserie chicken is the specialty, but there’s plenty more on the brunch menu — including shakshouka with tomato-peanut sauce, poutine with chicken gravy and a poached egg, and four different omelettes.

This attractive eatery in a restored 1881-vintage Victorian house serves such brunch specialties as Belgian waffles, made-to-order omelettes, shrimp and grits, and a “B Butcher Block Bagel” whose ingredients include ribeye steak, eggs, cheese, greens, and aïoli.

The unusual brunch menu here proposes such things as breakfast hand pies, watermelon bruschetta, duck confit frittata, and banana bread French toast with rum-raisin compote, served in woody, tavern-like surroundings.

This bungalow restaurant will serve a special two-course Southern brunch menu for Mother’s Day ($35 per person, half that for children under 12). First courses include she-crab soup, fried green tomatoes with goat cheese, and strawberry salad with arugula and aged gouda. Mains range from smoked brisket Benedict and Charleston gold rice porridge with okra and peas to Carolina trout with Mediterranean lentil salad and grilled pork chop with cauliflower and peanut romesco. (Note that the restaurant is not wheelchair accessible.)

Casual and colorful as befits its Waikiki location, Hula Grill serves brunch featuring both breakfast-style dishes (tropical pancakes, lump crab and spinach Benedict) and such lunch fare as sweet soy pork ribs, fish and chips, and steak frites with sesame soy aïoli.

At this casual bar and grill with exposed brick walls, comfortable booths, and outdoor seating, brunch can mean anything from vanilla custard French toast or strawberries-and-cream overnight oats to a Korean-accented bibimbap breakfast bowl with glazed crisp chicken and over-easy eggs or a breakfast burrito filled with braised red chili pork, scrambled eggs, pinto beans, and country potatoes. Tableside build-your-own mimosas and a build-a-Bloody Mary bar are added attractions.

This acclaimed upscale establishment was named by Open Table as one of the 100 best restaurants in America for a big night out, but they’re a good choice for brunch, too. It’s admittedly pricey ($60 per person), but each table gets a roasted seafood tower to begin, followed by ricotta-truffle agnolotti pasta. Then there’s an opulent brunch buffet, including made-to-order omelettes and a filet mignon station. A “Bottomless Bubbles” option adds Champagne and assorted fruit juices to the proceedings.

A handsome contemporary Mexican restaurant, Nada prepares classic huevos rancheros and bananas Foster French toast, but also such specialties as mac and cheese with roasted poblanos and jalapeños and fried avocado tacos with chipotle bean purée.

The atmosphere is casual here and the brunch menu is brief, listing only 10 or 12 items, but Edible Iowa River Valley magazine recently named Leaf Kitchen “Best Chef/Restaurant” in Iowa, so it seems like a good choice for a special occasion. Homemade granola pancakes, tomato feta omelette, and Moroccan eggs with pita and hummus are some of the dishes served.

This serious lakeside steakhouse doesn’t usually serve brunch, but makes an exception for Mother’s Day, when it mounts an extensive buffet that will include, says the restaurant, “a little bit of everything” — with, among other things, a Benedict station, an omelette station, a carving station, and an array of salads.

Just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, this white-tablecloth bistro offers a modestly priced brunch menu that includes lox and bagel, goat cheese quiche, avocado toast, or club sandwich. The price ($11-$14) includes a choice of green salad, fruit, potato cake, tomato dill soup, bacon, or goetta — the local pork-and-oatmeal sausage.

Widely hailed as one of the best restaurants in New Orleans (and the country as a whole), Commander’s traces its origins to 1893, and in the Brennan family — New Orleans restaurant royalty — since 1974, this is perhaps the city’s ultimate special-occasion venue (with prices to match). Brunch, accompanied by live jazz, might include such specialties as wild Louisiana white shrimp with roasted mushrooms and tomatoes or eggs Benedict made with 16-hour barbecued pork shoulder and buttermilk biscuits. A special package deal ($47) includes a classic Bloody Mary, turtle soup, molasses-glazed Texas quail, and Creole bread pudding soufflé.

There are nods to Mexico (huevos rancheros), Spain (breakfast paella), the South (biscuits with apple-bourbon sausage gravy), and the American mainstream (open-face meatloaf sandwich with a fried egg) on the brunch menu at this big, airy restaurant. The works of local artists enhance the walls.

Top Chef contestant and former Louisville restaurateur Ed Lee now has two branches of the Southern-style Succotash, one in Washington, D.C., and this one in the multi-part National Harbor complex, just down the Potomac from the nation’s capital, and across the river from Alexandria, Virginia. Such brunch items as pecan sticky buns, peel’n’eat shrimp, shrimp and grits, and a pimento cheese burger leave no room to doubt Lee’s Southern credentials.

This lively, clubby restaurant and lounge starts serving its breakfast/brunch at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings, for those who like to get an early start. Besides the usual pancake and egg dishes, both lobster and smoked salmon Benedicts are available, with other choices ranging from avocado toast with poached eggs to steak and eggs with hollandaise sauce. Mimosas, Bloody Marys, and Greyhounds, among other libations, are on offer.

Disregard the perhaps daunting name and the motto (“Meat & Whiskey”). This warm, tavern-like place offers on a full-scale, varied brunch menu on which the likes of apple Dutch pancake, French toast, and ham and cheese strata are joined by candied bacon deviled eggs, charred flank steak and eggs, and Monte Cristo fried chicken. A $5 Bloody Mary bar, with a choice of eight different spirits, is available until 3 p.m. One downside for Mother’s Day: No reservations are accepted.

Wood-fired Argentinean cuisine might not be the first thing you think of for Mother’s Day, but the brunch menu here includes a traditional breakfast sandwich, crab Benedict, and a seasonal omelette as well as leek and gorgonzola empanadas, potato churros, and — if Mom is the adventurous type — blood sausage with grilled bread, chimichurri sauce, and a fried egg.

Gulfport is Mississippi’s second-largest city (after Jackson, the capital), known for its beaches and casinos. This attractive white-tablecloth establishment combines traditional brunch fare like spinach and broccoli quiche and eggs Benedict with such Southern fare as shrimp and grits and trout with eggs Sardou (New Orleans-style poached eggs with artichoke hearts, spinach, and hollandaise sauce).

This homey and appropriately comfortable Scandinavian restaurant changes things up from the usual brunch menu. This is the place to come in Kansas City for the puffy Danish fruit pancakes called æbleskiver, raggmunk (juniper-braised pork belly with Swedish potato pancakes and sunnyside-up egg), Swedish waffles, and a traditional Swedish breakfast composed of gravlax or pickled herring, dill-scrambled eggs, chilled horseradish potatoes, and cucumber salad.

The dining room is informal and stylishly contemporary at this community-focused restaurant. The brunch menu offers familiar favorites, like eggs Benedict, corned beef hash with eggs, and a sourdough bagel sandwich (with bacon, eggs, and cheese), along with an occasional surprise like a vegetable and feta omelette enlivened with the Tunisian hot sauce called harissa and a sweet potato hash with house-made bacon and smoked mushrooms.

Said to be inspired by Omaha’s past as a major railway crossroads, Railcar is a cozy restaurant with wood accents, vintage chandeliers, and a collection of train posters and other memorabilia. Brunch choices include a Pig 3 Way Quiche (with country sausage, smoked ham, and slab bacon), a farmstead sausage and egg melt, and griddled prime rib with potato pancakes and sunnyside-up eggs.

There’s no shortage of brunch choices in Las Vegas (every hotel has a range of choices, to begin with), but the local outpost of Mon Ami Gabi, a small (five-unit) Chicago-based French bistro chain, at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino offers a particularly warm atmosphere — as well as a Mother’s Day brunch that starts at 7 a.m. The menu is small and traditional, featuring corned beef hash with eggs, eggs Benedict, and of course French toast among other things. Gabi’s Bloody Mary is garnished with bacon, hard sausage, Jarlsberg cheese, tomato, and cucumber.

This “fun family diner,” located between Nashua and Manchester in the southern portion of the state, doesn’t serve brunch per se, but offers extensive breakfast and lunch menus all day long. Bacon, not surprisingly, is a theme. Five varieties are offered, cooked soft, medium, crispy, or “dead (burnt).” Among the more brunch-style breakfast dishes are country-fried steak with eggs, six different Benedicts, 13 omelettes, and six kinds of pancakes, including bacon-filled cinnamon swirl pancakes with maple cinnamon cream cheese.

An Irish-accented gastropub run by a one-time bartender at Manhattan’s legendary Four Seasons, Moran’s serves such brunch dishes as corn flake-crusted French toast with fruit and Nutella sauce, “Mom’s Omelette” (with spinach, goat cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes — an obvious Mother’s Day choice), and a full Irish breakfast, including bacon, sausage, black and white pudding, baked beans, grilled tomato, egg, and home fries.

Vick’s — a casual Western-style place run by Robert Vick, who also operates an award-winning dining facility at nearby Kirtland Air Force Base — doesn’t call its Sunday breakfast buffet “brunch,” but it offers an extensive array of brunch-appropriate fare. Look for scrambled eggs, breakfast meats, biscuits, waffles, pancakes, green chile cheese enchiladas, and red chile pork tamales, among many other items.

For more than 20 years, this authentic-looking SoHo re-creation of a classic Parisian brasserie has been a local favorite. For those who fancy oysters, chicken liver and foie gras mousse, or beef stroganoff with buttered noodles for brunch, this is definitely the place. On the other hand, more conventional brunch fare, like apple cinnamon pancakes, brioche French toast with smoked bacon, and eggs Benedict are on the menu, too. The Balthazar bakery’s breads and pastries are famous, and supplied to restaurants around town, and should not be missed.

The name of this Irish pub and restaurant is not meant to discourage the attendance of women. It takes its name from a well-known poem by the Irish author and playwright Brian O’Nolan, penned under one of his many pseudonyms, Flann O’Brien. The restaurant’s website cites its refrain, “A pint of plain is your only man” — meaning a pint glass of beer is your best friend in the face of troubles. The hearty brunch menu here includes fried oysters, boxty (Irish potato cake) Benedict with bacon, bangers (sausages) with grits and eggs, and a beef-and-lamb shepherd’s pie.

One of Fargo’s nicer dining rooms is this one, at the city’s Edgewood public golf course. Sunday brunch is served buffet-style. The restaurant promises “something for everyone” — which includes pancakes, eggs, breakfast meats, biscuits and gravy, a variety of salads, and a different specialty entree every week.

Brunch at this clubby white-tablecloth farm-to-table restaurant — which sub-titles itself “A Scratch Kitchen” — adds a few unusual dishes (eggs Baltimore with a crabcake and tasso ham hollandaise, breakfast poutine with short rib gravy and sunnyside-up egg) to the more usual buttermilk pancakes, mushroom omelette, and quiche of the day.

This sleek craft bakery and café occupies a historic brick and limestone building, from 1923, that was once the headquarters of long-vanished Braniff Airlines. “Everything we serve is handcrafted each day starting at 4 a.m.,” proclaims the restaurant’s website. The extensive brunch menu runs from breakfast fare like fried green tomato Benedict and a hot chicken biscuit with sunnyside-up egg to entree salads, sandwiches, fried chicken pot pie, and “untraditional sides” including sweet potato with bacon, goat cheese, and burnt honey.

Olympia Provisions, opened in 2009, was Oregon’s first USDA-approved salumeria (maker of cured meats). They also have several restaurants, including this casual place with exposed ductwork-and-pipe ceilings. For brunch, diners have a choice of charcuterie boards, as well as sandwiches (like a capicola Reuben with housemade sauerkraut) and breakfast fare (a Benedict with ham, spinach, or smoked trout; hot cakes with maple syrup and orange butter).

Red booths, yellow walls, and brasserie-style chandeliers set the scene at this French bistro. Brunch is a fixed-price three-course affair ($25), including omelettes, steak and eggs, trout meunière, and fisherman’s-style eggs with mussels and tarragon cream. Mille-feulille (caramelized puff pastry) with raspberries is one of the dessert choices.

Barn doors and distressed brick set the casual tone for this American eatery in the Rumford section of East Providence. Lemon-ricotta doughnuts, Rhode Island johnny cakes (corn cakes) with ‘nduja and raclette, a selection of omelettes, stuffed challah French toast, and a Reuben Benedict are among the brunch choices.

This bright, nautically themed white-tablecloth restaurant just outside Charleston serves a selection of fresh seafood at brunch (including local flounder), as well as a range of Benedicts (one combining grilled ham with fried oysters) and other egg dishes. Southern fare, including she-crab soup and shrimp and grits, is also offered.

What venue could be more appropriate for celebrating Mom than the colorful, sunlit restaurant at the Children’s Museum of South Dakota? A special Mother’s Day brunch buffet is offered, including numerous egg dishes, breakfast meats, mac and cheese, Mediterranean pasta, salads, chicken salad sandwiches, and a choice of desserts.

The original Monell’s (there are two offshoots) occupies a 1905-vintage Victorian house, complete with transom windows and fireplaces, and murals depicting other historic buildings in the neighborhood. While it doesn’t serve brunch specifically, the restaurant offers an ample country breakfast (scrambled eggs, ham and sausage, biscuits and gravy, cheese grits, fried apples, pancakes, skillet-fried chicken, and more) from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Sundays, and then immediately picks up with its lunch menu (fried chicken is again the feature) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The bar-and-grill atmosphere and ample terrace at this Galleria-area branch of Dish Society (there are four others in the Houston area) make for a relaxed brunch venue. The large menu for the meal ranges from brisket’n’eggs, Nutella French toast, and breakfast tacos to Cobb salad, shrimp and grits, and grilled pesto chicken sandwich.

Arched windows, brass fixtures, and travertine marble surfaces set the scene at this New American bistro. Brunch choices include avocado toast with a tofu scramble, a mushroom and spinach omelette, and short rib hash with applewood-smoked bacon, fingerling potatoes, horseradish crème fraîche, and “eggs your way.”

The brunch menu at this non-profit working farm, inn, and restaurant is short and to the point, with only nine selections. No one will go hungry, though, when those selections include eggs Benedict with ham, braised greens, and home fries; house-churned-buttermilk pancakes with plum coulis and mascarpone; and steel-cut oat risotto with ham, cherry tomatoes, roasted onion, spinach, cheddar, and a poached egg.

The restaurant that calls itself Lunch.Supper! is actually two places, side-by-side, each specializing in a different meal. Early this year, the proprietors opened this third establishment, about a mile from the first two. The menu seems to go on forever, encompassing a breakfast charcuterie plate, assorted salads, four different Benedicts (one with a smoked salmon cake, another with pepper-crusted pork loin), omelettes, pancakes and waffles, brunch bowls, sandwiches, and full-scale meals like chicken and waffles and steak and eggs.

Specializing in “coastal seafood in Seattle,” Shaker and Spear adds unusual brunch fare (salt cod beignets, smoked trout rillettes, steamed clams with fennel sausage) to more expected choices like blueberry lemon ricotta pancakes, mushroom and herb omelette, and Dungeness crab cake Benedict.

Brick and wood define the dining room at this restaurant in Morgantown, near the Pennsylvania border. Mother’s Day brunch is buffet-style here. Fried green tomato Benedict with bacon jam, wild mushroom lasagna, shrimp with roasted vegetable couscous, and strawberry shortcake are among the dishes promised.

Lobster scramble, maple lamb sausage with herb French toast, huevos rancheros, and both a classic eggs Benedict and a version substituting caramelized vegetables for meat are among the items served at brunch here in a warm tavern atmosphere. Brunch cocktails include a bacon Bloody Mary and a raspberry spritz.

Colorful and cozy, Eggington’s serves breakfast/brunch from 7 a.m. on Sundays. Choices include a breakfast banana split, an Extravaganza Omelette with three kinds of meat, a Greek Benedict with feta and artichokes, and breakfast tamales.