Upscale restaurants: Not "family-friendly"

I know. The EOT thing never works. But dooley's post sized up the whole thing really nicely.

 

My one post that was actually on point leaned more toward your argument, actually.

 

Well, there is that.

 

ha, you know i was kidding, right?

 

I'm jumping back into this after sitting out a few pages, but I'm going to disagree with this.

I think the vast majority of parents on this planet would not even take their kids to a "very expensive" dinner (say $50 a plate or more) if they were below the age of sitting quietly for a couple hours (say 9 or 10). I sure as hell wouldn't. (My kids are 9 and 5.)

I also think that if you do remember having an experience where kids were being unruly at a "very expensive" dinner, you probably don't remember all the other times when there were no kids or the kids were so well behaved that you didn't notice them.

Now, I don't go out to many "very expensive" dinners -- me being a journalist and all -- but I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my life I've had the experience affected by unruly kids. And I don't remember a single time when they "ruined" my experience.

I just have a hard time believing this is really a problem.

Tom, seems to me you are being a little like the NRA here, refusing to accept that there are any limitations on your freedom out of principal. I don't think it's right for anyone to say you "don't belong" at a certain place with your kids, but I think you'd agree that you wouldn't waste your money on a dinner when your kids' behavior might interfere with your enjoyment of it, let alone everyone else's. If your kids behave well enough for you to enjoy your meal, then they won't bother anyone else and no one will mind.

One more thing for those of you without kids to know: When kids are misbehaving in public (a grocery store, airplane or restaurant), no one is bothered more by it than the parents, I can assure you of that.

 

Wow, that got out of control. I meant to post on this thread back when it was only one page long, but I never got around to it.

This is how I feel about the whole thing, not that it matters. We have two beautiful, well-behaved boys, one's 5, the other turns 2 in January. And we would NEVER think of taking them to an "upscale" restaurant and it has nothing to do with their behavior. We reserve those "special" nights for ourselves, a chance to kind of rekindle that flame, so to speak.

The select times we've been out to "upscale" restaurants, I've never noticed or not noticed kids/infants/toddlers there. To be honest, those nights, my focus is 120 percent on the beautiful woman sitting across from me. Maybe I'm different.

Now, I have no problem bringing the kids to Chili's, Outback, etc. because the atmosphere is a little different and if they get out of sorts, it's somewhat muffled. But again, that's family time. When it's mommy and daddy time, they go to their grandparents and we enjoy a nice, quiet dinner.

I don't look down on parents who would choose to bring their kids to upscale restaurants. That's up to them. I just choose to go the other direction in my own personal life.

 

OK, if we're on-thread again, I'll venture in. Mr. Tart and I do not take the kids to upscale restaurants on our own. That's our time. But they've had plenty of "fine dining" experience: family birthdays, anniversaries, retirements, college graduations. Mr. Tart and I both come from families that like to celebrate and are fortunate enough to be able to splurge on those occasions.

Perhaps it's easier when you have grandparents, cousins, etc., around to hold the kids' interest, but I only remember one occasion when we had to take turns walking the offender around outside the restaurant until the meal was over.

OTOH, the young i-bankers in our town sometimes turn feral after mixing single malts and barolo in the better establishments. Even the most closed-minded of you would enjoy your meal more seated next to our kids.