OTTAWA -- Sunday brunch is a popular social outing for friends, families, or those who just want to enjoy being in a group of people.
Home isolation due to COVID-19, and the closure of restaurants, has meant the weekly ritual has stopped. Now, an Ottawa group of friends has created a space to have a "virtual brunch."
VIRTUALBRUN.CH is a website that allows people to enjoy brunch with others from home via video chat.
Michah Melnyk is one of the co-creators of the site.
"Brunch has always been a weekly highlight; we go for Brunch every Sunday, and we didn’t really want to stop because we were doing the social distancing," he told CTV News Ottawa.
Melnyk regularly went out on Sundays with his friends until COVID-19 hit.
"When the call came from public health officials to be socially distant, we said, you know what? We want to be physically distant, but we want to be socially close."
How does the website work?
The site has five menu suggestions. You prepare your brunch, and eat with three to five people while doing a video chat through software such as Skype or Google Hangouts.
You can eat brunch with your friends, family, or pick complete strangers to make friends with.
"We also want to encourage people to connect with new friends," explains tech support Hanna Kent.
The users are also encouraged to share pictures of themselves enjoying brunch on Instagram, using the hashtag #virtualbrunch.
The team plans to continue to run the site through COVID-19 isolation.
"We’re lovers of brunch, but we’re haters of COVID," adds Melnyk.
The site is free, and you can join Hanna and Michah this Sunday.
