It amazes me when I see parents take a baby stick him in a high chair then proceed to ignore him and are astonished that the child acts up.
We took our daughter to her first restaurant at a little over a month old. We always set her in between us and we made sure she had something to keep her occupied and we kept engaging her through the whole meal. If for some reason she cried we couldn't get her to settle down her Mom would take her either outside or a waiting area or other part of the restaurant where there were few people. (No one else could take her because she would panic if she couldn't be near Mom in a strange place.)
She rarely cried (she was a fairly happy baby) as she grew restaurants become a fun activity she would color and we would play counting games and color games and name things as she learned to talk. We made a trip to the restaurant natural AND we made sure we reinforced good behavior and punished bad behavior.
As she got bigger we got her a fold up booster chair. When she seen us pack it up she knew were going out to eat and she would go get her restaurant pack. In it we kept crayons and colored pencils and some small dolls and a few books.
Its really not hard but its like anything else you got to think it through and prepare. Friends of ours had trouble with their kids being total brats in a restaurant and they asked us how come our Daughter was so well behaved. We showed them our little kit and we explained that they would need to go through a few bad trips to break the patterns they had put in place.
They managed it in 3 trips and their kids never acted badly again. The problem I see with most parents around our area that have trouble with their kids (and its sadly a large majority) is they don't seem to really want to be parents. They have kids then proceed to ignore them and are astonished when the act badly.
I like your idea, as the mom of a soon-to-be four year old we haven’t gone out to eat much because hubby and I agreed when she was an infant we didn’t want to take her to restaurant until she was old enough to feed herself and old enough to behave. I have taken her to several kid-friendly places and so far so good. Next time we go someplace, I will make sure I have a kit like yours to take with us. Having said that we live in a VERY rural area so there aren’t many restaurants to choose from.