Posted on 04/01/2017 4:27:35 PM PDT by Trump20162020
This seems to be a perennial argument in the food service industry but it never fails to attract my interest. The Washington Post picked up the story of an an upscale Italian restaurant in North Carolina called Caruso’s. They had run into a number of issues with parents bringing young and too often horribly behaved children into the eatery for dinner who then wound up annoying the rest of the clientele. As they tell the story, the straw which broke the camel’s back was a young girl with an i-Pad who was playing videos at full volume despite being asked to turn it down (or off) and the parents were completely failing to discipline her or resolve the situation. Shortly after that they imposed a ban on bringing children under the age of five into the establishment.
The typical howls of outrage from some parents began immediately, but there was another reaction as well.
The ban — conceived by the restaurant’s owner, Pasquale Caruso — has led to a dramatic increase in reservations, said Nunez, who said Caruso’s has seen a spike in diners, from about 50 per day to around 80.
“Banning children has always been a topic in the industry and every owner says, ‘I wish I could do it,’” he said. “Our owner has the full support of the staff. We work here to make a living, too, and we support our owner 100 percent.”
Good for them. Too often you see only one side of this debate in the press and it centers on the parents who are complaining and saying that families are being stigmatized or punished or what have you.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
...perhaps the restaurant could have a one night a week “family” night, this way people calling for reservations could be made aware that children will be present during dining...
Exactly.
Depends on the parents and the child. I no longer have any under ten, but we regularly took our children to white table cloth restaurants without incident. We didn’t take them when they were four, but long before ten they had table manners Queen Elizabeth would applaud. It’s all about parenting.
I don’t get bothered by children at regular restaurants but, when I go upscale those little brats bug the heck out of me.
I want to enjoy my dinning experience not tolerate it.
I’m happy for a restaurant owner to do whatever he prefers.
And here come the child haters.
Actually there is a section at the 9:00 Mass where the families sit (and we have some really large families thank Jesus). It’s in front of the crying room. Mr. Mercat and I usually sit on the other side. We call it the Infant Choir. Actually Fr. Ric calls it that. and we celebrate it. I love seeing the kids. For the most part they and their parents do very well. I did sit behind a dad with three kids once. The kids were quiet as they could be but wiggled and pinched each other and pushed and dad totally ignored them. He was to his credit, very focused on the altar but it was distracting to me. I should have moved.
Eat at the bar to avoid the unruly brats...
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Wife and I went to a bar/restaurant. Some dumbass had his four or five kids taking up half of the bar seats. I asked him if they had ID cards. Everyone thought I was out of line.
Our three kids always went with us to all kinds of restaurants. They never got out of line ever.
At the price of dinner at try deupscale fine dining places one has a right to expect a relaxing experience. That’s usually WHY adults go out to eat AWAY from their own kids! If enough patrons get up when brats start up more owners will act or be left with only kids running wild.
Children’s OWN previlige.
When my son was four or five and well behaved, I was told by the hostess that they did not serve children under six.
That was fine. We went back many times later when he was older and enjoyed the restaurant which had no obnoxious young ones.
Actually we worked our way up the “food chain” so to speak.
We started with Denny’s and moved up from there. Eventually we made it to the most upscale place in town.
We informed the maître d’ of our needs. They were pretty basic. We understood the time window on the children was about 30-45 minutes and that if they could keep an eye on the clock the children would be perfect. They did as we asked, we were out in about 45 minutes and the kids were exceptionally well behaved.
Unruly children are bored children, and that is not the server’s fault but the parents fault.
By far the worst for service with children is Red Robin
And any restaurant that thinks it’sself as “upscale “ is ridiculous and self-important. What’s going on there that is so upscale? Let the kids in and add some life to the place. There’s no such thing as upscale in my book. It’s all preposterous .
I have taken my 3 year old daughter into several very upscale restaurant with no problem I have actually been thanked by the management for her behavior You have to know your child and what they are capable of An iPad with headphones and their favorite movie never hurts either
One restaurant had a sign I liked: Keep Your Children Quiet and In Their Seats.
Many years ago when my older daughter was about 2/3, we went to Sarasota, Florida. It was a business trip for my husband. One night the man he went to see and his wife invited us to go out to a really nice restaurant. We took our daughter with us. They could not get over how well behaved she was. We had been taking her to nice places for months. Kids today are an entirely different story. Some do not know what no means. It seems like they have never heard the word. It is a shame.
Explain why wishing to go to a restaurant for the quiet and upscale ambiance without having to tolerate poorly behaved children makes people “child haters”?
Children should be served only if they are properly cooked.
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