You’d be hard pressed to find me someone who doesn’t love brunch. When a Sunday hangover’s got you down, nothing is a better pick-me-up than good company, comfort food and a few Bloody Marys or Mimosas. Well, maybe more than a few…. The subsequent brunch buzz and food baby help nurse you to an early nap, re-energizing you for the week ahead. But for something so universally loved, brunch is about to get a little different (and in some ways polarizing) in Fishtown.

Christian Mora and chef Brian Oliveira are opening Girard, a 70-seat, reservation only, BYO brasserie and bruncherie that’s set to open in September on Girard and Marlboro Streets. What sets Girard apart from other dining establishments is that Mora and Oliveira will be paying their workers a “living wage” of about $11 an hour, providing health insurance, offering paid sick days and profit sharing as part of employee compensation. The catch? Girard will not encourage its customers to tip their servers.

“A tip should be left for exceptional service, not part of someone’s salary, and that’s what it has become,” Mora said. “If one of our guys goes above and beyond and you have a great time and you want to leave him a few bucks extra, great, I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. But that doesn’t mean that because he brought out a plate and put it in front of you that you have to pay him for it. That should be on us.”

This approached has caused some stir in the local service industry, but Mora and Oliveira believe that their business model is ideal for the right kind of people and will promote an environment where employees care about delivering the highest quality of service and hospitality to customers.

“From what we have heard, there is a lot of interest from people who want to come in and work,” Mora said. “Starting off, it won’t be the highest paying job but it will be fun, you will enjoy it… you might sacrifice a little bit of pay right now for a long-term job with profit sharing. Anything over our projected sales and what we need to cover costs is profit that will be evenly distributed between the staff. So the dishwasher gets the same as the sous chef for a total team effort.”

Mora and Oliveira met in 2011 while working at Parc in Rittenhouse. Mora still works as a server there while Oliveira, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, manages Honest Tom’s Taco Shop in West Philly while doing soups and stocks on the side. The two always had aspirations to create their own concept for a restaurant and settled on Girard after serendipitously stumbling upon a plot of land that also happens to be the side lot of Mora’s current apartment.

“Even at my first job at Planet Hollywood 14 years ago, I knew I wanted to do my own thing with a restaurant and the creativity behind it,” Mora said. “I’ve always been looking for the right concept, at the right time, with the right people, and everything started coming to a head last year. Who was the right person to do something new and progressive with? Brian was the only phone call I made.”

The concept that the two ultimately settled on became Girard—a European-inspired eatery that will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Oliveira’s menu will focus on simple and beloved dishes that pay attention to smaller details. In the chef’s opinion, these finer points are what truly make a dish.

“We want to keep it approachable,” the chef said. “I’m all about simple, doing very little to the food, keeping it fresh. When you keep the food simple, I’ve noticed that people really enjoy it a lot more. It’s all about the technique, attention to detail and the ingredients we are using and sourcing. ‘Seasonal standards’ is one of the taglines we are using— dishes that people are familiar with and love already. We are not reinventing them, just paying attention to how they are prepared and making sure that everything is made with basic culinary fundamentals and keeping it truly seasonal.”

This includes a traditional brunch menu, a “liquid breakfast” of liquefied fruits and vegetables and rotating roti de jour (roast of the day) items that will feature Denver lamb ribs on Tues., roasted cauliflower on Wed., crown roast of pork on Thurs., whole roasted fish on Fri., ribeye au jus on Sat., and venison ossobucco on Sunday.

Girard will also be serving coffee that will be prepared only three ways—coffee, espresso or espresso with milk. This modest coffee selection is in reaction to the double-shot Frappuccinos, mocha macchiatos and skinny lattes that many coffee drinkers are ordering today. Instead, Girard is mimicking what some of the more progressive coffee houses in Australia are doing, serving single origin coffee coming from the same plot of land on the same farm.

“Think of what’s happening with the craft breweries around here, well the same is happening with coffee and we are going to bring that to Fishtown,” Mora said. “Very thought out recipes, meticulous processes that will make the coffee consistent every time with the best products using the best machinery. Every cup of coffee will be individually brewed so it’s not just a big batch. As far as espresso, we set out to find the perfect mix of espresso and milk and we’ve found it.”

Despite the simple menu that Girard is going for, Oliveira stresses that there will be enough variation to keep everyone pleased. And that’s what Oliveira and Mora are striving for more than anything—pleasing their clientele and delivering the high qualities of hospitality and service possible.

“We are striving for the highest level of hospitality and at the same time combining it with an absolutely fun place, a place were you come, there’s good energy, you feel at home and are going to be attended to the utmost—a place where every detail is taken care of,” Mora said. “We are shooting for the kind of service you’d expect for $100 a person with a very approachable price tag and with a neighborhood, family vibe that won’t be stuffy.”

“To meet or hopefully exceed expectations you have to find out what they are,” Oliveira said. “Everyone has a reason for being there, whether a celebration or being away on business. You need to find that out before you can even meet their expectation and then exceed them. We are going to try to do that both with our food and service. It’s going to be fun fine-dining.”

Look out for Girard the fall, but don’t forget to get a reservation first. In the meantime you can see the restaurant’s menu on their website, www.girardongirard.com.