Happy Monday Everyone! I hope you all had a great Easter weekend! I haven't shared a restaurant review with you, but I wanted to share my Easter Brunch with you in case you live in Atlanta and want to attend a special event brunch at Park Tavern. The tavern is located on the Southeast corner of Piedmont Park, at the corner of Monroe and 10th St. Park Tavern is very well known in Atlanta and is always talked about being a "must do" when you are in the city.
I had never been to Park Tavern before, but when I was researching Easter Brunch options I was really intrigued with the buffet style meal, all you can drink mimosas, the gorgeous view of the park and it wasn't $95 per person. There are two different tickets you can purchase for these events, regular brunch $34.95 and brunch with "bubbles" is $44.95. I had asked some friends if they were interested in going and they all immediately said yes. I quickly grabbed everyone's tickets, as the event will sell out (according to their website) and we were all really excited. Little did I know, the cluster I was about to get us in.
Our reservation time was at noon, so we all packed in my car, around 10:45 am and headed for Midtown. We arrived in the area we needed to be in and the traffic was worse than rush hour during the week. I had done my research about where to park and their website states there is a $5 parking lot, near the restaurant, and you can park there. Initially we missed the parking lot as there were no signs directing you in. After making a U-turn, we located the parking area and were immediately met by a gentleman who worked for Park Tavern. He stated the parking lot was full, so we needed to find someplace else to go. I asked him where the nearest parking lot was and he had no idea. He did tell us one place we could potentially park, but after leaving we noticed it was a tow away zone and my car would've been towed. We dropped off three members of our party, to claim the reservation, and decided to park in the lot associated with Park Tavern. The gentleman at the parking lot told us we could pay the $5 and see if we could find a spot, but he couldn't guarantee anything. We decided to go ahead and pay and luckily a nice SUV was backing out so we were able to get a spot!
View of Downtown Atlanta
After securing the parking spot, we headed to the restaurant, which had two long lines to get in. The Easter egg hunt was going on, so there were a lot of spectators. The two of us made it to the front of the line and realized the rest of our party were already inside and had secured a table. We received our wrist bands, for the bubbly brunch and found our group. My Mom had found us the best table. It was on the patio side of the restaurant, and we had a great view of Piedmont Park. We headed up to the buffet, which was the only one we could see, and a lot of the containers were empty or the burner light had gone out and the food was cold. After grabbing our first plates, we started to notice people walking around with food that wasn't on the buffet. One person in our party said it would be nice if they had two different buffet's going to accommodate all of the people. Little did we know, they did have two. Mom and I took a walk around the restaurant and found a carving station, omelet station, another buffet and a waffle/dessert station inside. We made sure to tell the rest of the party so everyone could enjoy all of the food. I decided to go to the omelet station and grab a veggie omelet. The omelet was good, but they did not cook the inside of the omelet, so there was still liquid eggs on the inside. The waffle station was amazing and they had so many toppings to choose from. As we were all up getting the final items we wanted, we noticed bags of Krispy Kreme donuts being delivered and put out for people to enjoy. I only found one bar that was serving the mimosas and the line for that could get pretty long, but it went by quickly, so that was good. If you wanted something other than mimosa's, other drinks were available, but you did have to pay for that.
At the end of the day, we all had a great time. The food may have been mediocre, but the mimosas and the atmosphere was definitely worth the price. I know they have these brunches for Easter and Mother's Day, but I'm not sure about any other times. They do have a large event calendar on their page which will give you all of the information you will need and you will book your tickets directly through their website.
I want to share some tips for you if you plan on heading down to Park Tavern for an event:
Do your research! Know where you need to go and know where you need to park. I had done my research and still couldn't find the parking lot. The streets in midtown are really skinny and easy to get lost on, so make sure you know where you are going.
Make sure you allow enough time to get there. There will be traffic around Piedmont Park, which will delay your trip a little.
Buy your tickets early. I booked the tickets on April 1st and time slots were selling out while I was group chatting to pick a time.
As I mentioned above, they have two tickets, a brunch ticket and a bubbly ticket. In the FAQ's they sent the day before, it said if you wanted to upgrade to the bubbly ticket at the event you could, it would just cost $10! If we would've known we could this, we would've booked the 11 am time slot with the brunch ticket and then upgraded.
If you think you would want a mimosa or two at the brunch, definitely book the bubbly ticket. It's an additional $10, but the individual drinks people were purchasing were starting around $5. I had three mimosas and definitely would've spent more than the $10 if I hadn't paid for that ticket.
Secure a table and then head to the buffet. We watched so many people walk in, go straight to the buffet and then try to figure out where they were going to sit. It's a little harder to find a place when you are carrying drinks and plates.
Make sure you scope everything out before you decide on what you want to eat. Our group headed to the closest buffet, which also had the longest lines and the most issues with food. There was another buffet, plus a lot of other options if we just would've been explored first.
Either book a 10 am, 11 am, 1:30 pm or 2 pm time slot. Our reservations were at noon, but I didn't know about the Easter egg hunt at noon. Not only do you have all of the people who had come in during the earlier time slots, but there were a ton of people there for the egg hunt. Note: If you book the 10 am reservation, you cannot start drinking mimosas until 11 am.
Taking MARTA might be the easiest way to get down to Park Tavern, just note there is about a mile walk from the station to the restaurant.
All in all, we had a great time. I would do an event here again, I just now know what I need to do when I get there!