Would you frequent a restaurant that banned young kids?
A popular eatery in Ottawa has been taking flak recently after suggesting that a patron with a small child might want to dine elsewhere.
They didn't "ban" kids; but, given the local uproar, they might as well have. And they wouldn't be the first.
“Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!” say signs posted at one spot in North Carolina. And children six and under are no longer welcome at McDain's Restaurant, just outside of Pittsburgh.
Not because the owner doesn't like them. It's just that they've become too much of a bother for other customers. After all, there are a lot of restaurants that cater to families, he says.
“Parents have gradually diminished their cooperation,” he told MSNBC last year.
“This is a three-part issue. One is the increasing number of small babies that can’t be controlled. They can’t be quiet and really they can’t be expected to.”
The second factor is kindergarten-aged kids who “have shown increasingly poor manners.” And lastly he blames parents, who “act like we’re the ones being offensive” when staff members ask them to calm their children down.
It's not that radical an idea. Just look at Leavethembehind.com, a travel site for kid-free vacations, with a massive list of resorts and hotels around the world that don't cater to children. But restaurants are a bit different.
Do you think it's a good idea to cut kids out of restaurants? Would you patronize or protest?
By Gordon Powers, MSN Money
Posted by: Al-Man | Sep 4, 2021 4:39:24 PM
I don't plan on taking my kids to a nice restaurant until they are older. I still have to teach them about how to act in some places and maybe build them up to it over a period of a few years.
You almost can't blame some restaurants. There are many places that are both very nice and very expensive. A restaurant like that is a place where you take someone for a very quiet and memorable dining experience. When it comes to some of the hellions and truly ill mnnered children I've seen coupled with parents who don't, or won't, control their unruly children, its no wonder some dining establishments would rather that there be no children there.
Posted by: John | Sep 4, 2021 9:58:02 PM
I agree with Al-Man. When my kids were small, we never when to nice restaurants. It's just not appropriate. Besides, how many high-end restaurants serve hot dogs? How many 6-yr olds eat escargot, Dulcia Domestica, Shrimp Ramakis, Crostini Alla Fiorentina, etc, etc. When I go to a very nice restaurant, I want a nice quiet evening with my wife.
Posted by: Barb Payne | Sep 6, 2021 10:53:09 AM
Some of parents consider any restaurant as a playground for their children. The last thing I want to endure, on the few times that my husband and I go out for a nice eating experience, a place where the tone is relaxing are children jumping from one table chair to the other, screaming and running around while the servers are trying to do their jobs. Its at those times the parents seem to have lost their hearing and their vision and expect the rest of the patrons to do the same.
This is not the kids fault at all, but I do place all of it on the parent, the indulging of bad behavoir seems to be the easier road to take, wait for it, come 13, pay back time.
Its these same parents who make the most noise, "I don't know why my child is like this, blah blah blah.
Hmmmmmm......
Posted by: Frank | Sep 9, 2021 5:40:57 PM
The first time I went to an up scale restaurant I was 18 years old. Famlies were different 50 years ago. For one thing there wasn't any money for dining out all the time. Today people eat in restaurants 2 or 3 times a week. Is it fair to other customers who pay large sums of money only to have screamy children in a fine restaurant? No! Keep them at home until they have been taught how to behave. It isn't the fault of the children. The parents should know better.
Posted by: Thintheherd | Sep 11, 2021 1:05:22 PM
We recently came back from a cruise and although we had a wonderful time, MANY of the children on-board were horribly behaved and very disrespectful. They would push adults out of their way or shove through them to get where they want to go. They were in "serenity" areas that were clearly marked as 18+ but no parents did anything to stop them.
( I think a lot of parents weren't even in the area when the kids were). They ran around like monkeys and would go sit in the hot tub and just be general nuisances. We didn't allow our son to be in there, (he is 17), because he wasn't old enough so what makes someone think a 6 or 12 year old qualifies for entrance LOL. Children are noisy and excitable especially when on vacation, and I'm OK with that as long as it's in an appropriate setting.
I think restaurants should be allowed to set their own guidelines and wish more would do so. Like a previous poster mentioned, there are restaurants that are family oriented and they want that type of business so the parents would be doing everyone a favor by patronizing them instead, at least until the children are older.