I have had several nice meals out with my husband (all too rare with our budget and schedule) ruined by misbehaving children and adults who think their antics are "cute". So in my book, leave them home with a sitter unless you are really sure they are going to behave. And you insure they are going to behave by practicing table manners at home.

I think one of the problems is that fewer and fewer families sit down at their own dining room tables to eat a meal with napkins, table settings, glassware, and a candle or two. For many of my friends, their family meals were almost always in the car, or standing up at the kitchen island with everyone warming up something and eating when ever they wanted, and/or sitting in front of the TV in the family room. You can't learn table manners and conversation skills if you only eat at a table at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Maybe it's because I had three boys, but I believe that children need a lot of social practice!

I don't buy the argument that after school activities mean you can't have family meals. But that's one of my priorities, so I'm not unbiased on that topic!

KSUViolet.... oh HELL no! your friend is nicer than i would have been. and if i were that mom, i'd either move, or tell my kid we would talk about it at home later.

Ditto on that.

IrishLake, totally OT, but Jeff Ruby knows how to cook a steak for sure. The Precinct....yum. Also Bootsies!

And yes, even if the children are well behaved, when someone else's little ones are sitting practically in your lap, it does change the ambience.

No, that's not over the top at all.

I won't call you crazy; I'll just be happy for you next time I'm enduring a flight. :D

Katmandu, that's exactly where we were too, The Precinct. It was my first time there, and the food was absolutely delish. I've never had a better steak, (I am not a huge steak person, only in certain moods). Not at Mortons, Cameron Mitchel's places... which are very good. The atmosphere was wonderful, the service phenomonal. Both of the kids sitting next to me were each eating the mac n cheese sides as their entrees. Looked so good, that's what I got as one of my sides too, plus sweet potato casserole, which was sweet enough to serve as my dessert.

(Should I mention that 4 hours later I was puking my $60 meal up? No idea what happened. Not food poisoning because my husband ate a little bit of everything on my plate, and he was fine. I think it was because it had been so long since I had rare red meat in my system, that my body didnt remember how to digest it).

IrishLake, my last Precinct meal: Dry martini, house salad, Filet Collinsworth (unbelievable), sweet potato casserole, merlot. Service and food outstanding! I know what you mean... when you typically eat low fat and not a lot of red meat, one meal like that can play havoc on your system.

Now back to the thread....

I have three boys that have trouble sitting still even in family friendly restaurants- I cannot imagine taking them anywhere nicer than a TGI Fridays type of place.

I remember when I was a kid, when we turned 10 (I'm the youngest of 4), my parents made a big deal of taking us out to a nice restaurant for our birthday (just kid and parents- no siblings). I remember getting all dressed up and being so excited for my first "nice" restaurant outing.

My parents took me to Red Lobster. But I thought it was the fanciest place ever and was on my best behavior- I remember the manager even kissing my hand when he came over to our table to wish me a happy birthday.

I guess it is all perspective.

This. And, it's not over-the-top to expect the parents AND kids to stay in their seats and not hop and bop about all the time. And it's also not over-the-top to expect non-babies to be quiet. Your three-year-old can be told NOT to scream at the top of his/her lungs and comprehend that.

I really only have problems when I go to Florida, and I think it's because the kids are all hopped up on Disney and sugar. Seriously, someone should consider adult-only flights to Florida airports. I bet it would go over.

This. I don't draw the line between fellow diners based on age, but on behavior. IMHO, anyone who behaves appropriately for the setting is welcome at the table next to me; those who do not, are not.

The article lists a few child-friendly restaurants because most places of that caliber do not welcome children. There are something like 10,000 restaurants in New York City. It makes sense to me that some upscale ones would cater to children (particularly those based in hotels, like the Robuchon place in the Four Seasons) and others would not. I don't have any problem with a subset of restaurants branding themselves as more welcoming and others more exclusive. Last year my family brought our two-year-old to lunch at the Four Seasons in San Francisco and received, bar none, the best service I've ever seen in my life -- service so superb that it kept the child happy and quiet for much longer than we had expected to stay in the restaurant.

That being said, there are four little kids in my extended family right now, and they're very different from one another. I have a 4-year-old nephew who, frankly, I don't enjoy taking to McDonald's. I would go hungry before I'd bring him to Gramercy Tavern! But my 7-year-old niece has been a superb dining companion, with excellent manners and varied tastes, since she was 2. We didn't blink an eye bringing her to white-tablecloth places (albeit not of the Daniel or Per Se caliber), and she was better dressed and better behaved than some of the adult diners.
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Medical Marijuana Dispensary Santa Clarita

I think 7 years old is getting close to the age where you could consider taking a child to some nicer restaurants. Like you said, Daniel and Per Se would be too much, but Per Se, specifically could challenge the staying power of an adult with the average dining time of 4 hours. I wouldn't mind seeing a well behaved child under 10 at a haute cuisine restaurant, and would actually be impressed that the parents have introduced such varied foods to the child so that he/she will eat something other than chicken nuggets! (I think the children's menu is the worst thing to happen to American dining.)

I agree with you about the children's menus! They are evil. Bad for dining and terrible for public health -- children who get in the habit of eating high-fat garbage will always be attached to those foods. The children's menu should have small portions of the dishes on the main menu.

Of course, the finest restaurants will try to make any diner happy, regardless of age and the menu. During the Four Seasons visit that impressed me so much, my 2-year-old niece's mini sandwich came with bite-size mixed fruit on the side. The waitress noticed that my niece loved the blueberries in the fruit salad and was eating them first...so without being asked, she brought a bowl of blueberries to the table! Service like that makes me happy to pay $20 for a club sandwich.

This article has good suggestions for parents:

http://blogs.pitch.com/fatcity/2010/..._taking_yo.php
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LATIN GIRL LIVE

I'm a server at a mid-level "upscale" restaurant I guess you can say?
certainly nothing that has really been spoken about on this thread, but higher than the family friendly restaurants. (I'd rather not post where I work due to what I'm going to say)..these are all in the 'general' world, as tips and that sorta thing can never be judged by looking at them, but this is just from my "experience" (i've only worked there for a year so far).

Unfortunately due to the demand of families, our restaurant has had it's doors open up to large parties, and for accommodations for children, which is something that they are now trying to fix with new renovations (making it less reasonable for a party more then 8 to get a table). I find that parties, even at the size of 8 with children are typically awful for a number of reasons

whether they're well behaved or not, if your party is a certain number +, you're going to get atleast 2 servers taking care of you, with the 15% adding right on. However, if a number of kids are included in this party number, the tips diminishes significantly and there's really no point in having the second server around, but due to rules (or sharing of different sectioned tables) nothing can be done. Often parents don't realize this and "compensate"

Then you have the problem of a bunch of children being around each other, almost feeding off each others' energy.. which leads to games like tag, or hide and seek in the dining room. I've seen it multiple times, and unlike most servers or even managers, have found their parents, and have talked to them sternly that our restaurant is not a McDonalds playground, and they could actually be severely hurt if a server walked, or tripped over them, kicked them, or they run into the kitchen's swinging doors when someones behind them. This has happened even without it being a "party" per say.

I've also had a lot of trouble with parents who don't understand to NOT order food for your child if you know s/he won't eat it. Because it ends up on the floor. and who takes care of that? normally the busser, but most of the time, these same parents spend 2+ hrs at the table (so the server looses a possible 2 turns) and the bussers are usually gone by whatever time they finish. So it's the server. Typically, these same people only tip 10%, if that. I had to serve a family where they had a disabled baby. They ordered him mac and cheese. none of it entered this kid's mouth, but ended up ALL over the floor and the table, making a huge disturbance in the dining area as well as a huge mess, which I ended up having to clean up as they left when they bussers did. I understand, that this is my job, and along with it comes this situation...buuut I still don't like it.

And while this child makes a mess, just like any other child who makes a disturbance, the parents are spending more of their time coddling their kid rather than enjoying their meal, which is not cheap.

Another annoyance is when the restaurant is an hour away from close, and you decide to bring your family of 20, 10 of them being children. Sure, it's a weekday, it's late, we have a place for you that is not around the main dining area. But oh wait, you want us to make everyone's meals ready in 10 minutes because you don't want your kids to stay up late on a school night, and they're getting fussy because they should be in bed? sorry, not going to happen.


This was really for me to vent my frustrations. When it comes to well behaved children, I give a huge compliment to the parents to let them know whatever they do as parents is working (while hoping for another parent to overhear and take a hint).

I think a lot of it comes down to people who don't want to face reality when they have kids. Things change, and everyone thinks they can "have it all," and they think having a baby won't change their lives. But it's like, "Dude! You have a little person who requires your attention and care. This means no Boulud for you unless you hire a sitter!"

That takes nerve! The owner should have told her to take the kid home!

Sigh. Ten bucks says that the oblivious parents who bring their little ones to the fancy-schmancy restaurants today are the helicopter parents of tomorrow who will pitch the mother of all fits when their "special little snowflake" doesn't get a bid during recruitment.

That's exactly what would have gone down at my nail place, those ladies are no joke! The only kids I've seen in there are the ones getting their nails done.

Bwahahahaha!

my own HUSBAND has suggested i take my kids with me to the salon when I get my hair hi-lighted. he got a huge "WTF are you thinking?" look. not only would they be a disruption to other patrons, but they'd be a disruption to ME! salon time is ME time, you bozo. take the kids to the autoparts store and home depot with you!

(and i'm going to brag here a bit... my husband is an academically trained chef, and my daughter has inherited his palate. there is very little she wont eat, and chicken fingers for dinner out are a big no-no. even she claims they are "only for lunch." if anything, we'll get an adult grilled chicken sandwich, and the kids split it, with a side of broccoli and french fries... hey, i'm not THAT cruel to deny them fries! and never in my life have i seen a kid eat stuff like fresh fruit and sweet bell peppers like she does. i'm waiting patiently for my son to start eating like her.)

My mom says that all the time - that she loves flying. Then again, she's only flown for pleasure, and not on a crappy prop plane with less than 20 seats, or on a red-eye home from the west to the east coast because your boss was too cheap to flip for a hotel room. That flight was awful - we had flown one of the crappy newer airlines and get this - they couldn't land in Boston because of fog - their pilots didn't have experience landing in fog (all other airlines were landing and taking off). I woke up around 8am as we were circling above Ohio, and asked the chick next to me what was up. She said that Logan had sent us to circle Ohio an hour and a half earlier.

We used to fly a lot to see family, but these days, it's so much effort. It wouldn't kill the relatives to come see us one of these days, but I digress.

EXACTLY! My mother flies twice a year, and it's always between her house in Florida and a relative's home or a hotel. I've been flying 4-5 times a year since college, and I've had to stay in airports all day because of snowstorms, lost connections and thus had to stay in hotel rooms, and all that nonsense.

The last time I really "enjoyed" flying, I was doing it first class because of frequent flyer status.

My grandmother manages an antique mall and they have a sign posted that says something along the lines of "Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy."

An antique mall is one of the the last places I'd want children to run free.

You know, I have no problem sharing restaurant space with kids. Then again, I've never been anywhere I couldn't wear jeans, so there you have it.

WOW at Violet's stories! Both women had a lot of nerve! When I get a mani/pedi, I always bring headphones so I can zone out. The salon does accept children and I've seen people look annoyed with them. I went this week and there were little girls running around. However, the music serves its purpose here--I could see them but not hear them. ;)

Honestly, I think toddlers are too young. You can bring the children who can control their crying--with babies/toddlers, they just explode and they stop when they stop. With older kids (5+) it boils down to behavior, not age.

I am appalled by parents who can't or won't control their kids in any restaurant, nice or "kid-friendly". When mine were younger, we didn't eat out much (too many of them, not enough money) but we did train them to sit in their seats and not raise their voices. Many times, people came up to compliment us on their behavior--yet they were only doing what they should have. We often recall one trip to Epcot in which other diners kept coming to our table and thanking us and we were astonished; what kinds of awful kids were these people used to?

Isn't that a great feeling? We had this happen many times (with our twins).
Hats off to you Carnation! Hope you had a great Mother's Day last weekend.We are celebrating today since my girls were out of the country last Sunday.

One word to Fine Dining: NO!

As a frequent flyer, I dread flights on weekends and pray for an upgrade to First Class. Luckily, most flights at 6am on a Monday morning are business travelers.

we have had the same thing happen to us (when at church and when out to eat), and it is an awesome feeling. especially when there's other kids around being very loud or distracting to others.

I was at Cheesecake Factory a few months ago with a friend. The hostess directed us to our table which happened to be next to a family with three toddlers were running wild around the restaurant. I asked the hostess to find us a different table. She gave me this look that screamed "CHILD HATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm certainly not and would like some of my own one day. I just don't want to be annoyed throughout my meal whether it's at the Cheesecake Factory or Bacchanalia (Atlanta fine dining restaurant).

One of the worst experiences I had was at Chili's which, of course, is a family friendly restaurant. That still doesn't give kids a free pass to act up. There were two kids ages 3 and 5 in the booth behind us with mom and grandma. The kids had been throwing stuff and screaming the whole meal. While the older child threw a massive temper-tantrum on the ground (complete with kicking the floor and booth), the younger child crawled up the booth and began dangling over to our side. I yelped when this kid's face ended up right in mine because it scared the living crap out of me. Grandma said calmly, "No-no, Jacob. We don't do that." My grandparents or parents would've dragged me to the car and whooped my butt!! I asked the hostess if we could be moved and both she and the kids' family looked at me like I was some sort of monster for not finding the kids to be cute!

This is what I hate more than anything. If you want to bring your children to more family-friendly restaurants, that's fine. However, you still need to control them!

I used to work in a local bar/restaurant in Erie, PA. During the day, especially on weekends, people would bring their younger children in for a meal. For the most part, none of them had acted up to a great extent... except on Sundays... during football season... on the days when the only place you could catch a Steelers game was out at a restaurant or bar, because the game was "blacked out".

The restaurant would be PACKED, and trying to maneuver around tables and people was next to impossible... especially while trying to carry dishes to and from the kitchen. And there were ALWAYS those parents who let their kids run around like crazy.

And my favorite line from parents, after their kid runs into me and starts crying: "See, I told you that would happen if you acted like that." Uh.. that's why you grab them and say, "Cut it out or we're leaving!" BEFORE anything like that happens.

First of all, I love flying and I HAVE been on those crappy flights... And I've also been on those planes with less than 20 seats (because when flying out of Erie, you really don't have a choice). You get used to the crazy flying patterns and being able to see the runway while landing because there's no door between you and the cockpit :p

And I have to ask... that awful flight with the fog... when was that? Because when I was in college, I was flying home for spring break and I was heading into Manchester, NH from Detriot. The pilot gave us updates every so often, and started talking about it being foggy. Later we were told we were circling the Manchester airport waiting for the ok to land. Then later we were told that we were unable to land, that we couldn't be diverted to Logan because too many flights were already landing there (and they were having trouble with fog, too), and that we'd have to fly back to Detriot.

I spent the night in the airport, slept on the floor (for maybe an hour) and was sick all week.

But I still like flying! ... I just don't like when things go wrong. Obviously.

In each case, it's the parenting that failed. If a child flips out in a restaurant, IMHO, the parent should scoop up said child and take them outside until they can behave. It happens, I've seen it happen. One wonderful father even had his son apologize to the people seated next to them - in a family restaurant. And there is no excuse for children to be running and screaming in ANY restaurant - even McDonald's! If a parent gives in to the behavior in one place, the kids only get confused as to when they may act up.

My favorite restaurant technique, though, belongs to a dear friend of mine. She has a friend who teaches "etiquette for young ladies and gentlemen". When a child becomes out of control, she whips out the friend's business card, gives it to the parent(s), and says, "Hope this helps!" in a friendly way. They get the idea very quickly.

As for flying, I always tease about "the mandatory crying baby" on each flight. I try very hard to realize that tiny ears may be hurting due to the take off and landing, yet when older children are bratty, and the parents refuse to do something about it, I will tell the flight attendant and tell her that she can point out the complaintant (me). That way, the airline isn't blamed, I am - and I couldn't care less about what undisciplined people think of me.

Seriously, the only decent flight anymore is the chartered airplane!

Tangent...why would they black out Steeler games? It's not like they weren't all sellouts. Do you mean the local affiliate was playing a different game instead (I'm guessing Cleveland)? That's not the same thing as a blackout.

Yes, this is what I meant. But everyone would refer to them as being blacked out. Crazy Erie Pennsylvanian speak :p

Most of the time they play the Bills in Erie. I assume that's because no one in Erie watches or likes the Bills.

We watched a lot of great Steelers games at Sullivan's.

Fine dining is not the only place where children should not be allowed.

Is there enough time in the day? LOL.

Te world should NOT have to suffer because parents can't get a babysitter or having the babysitter cancel on them. Of course, there are exceptions.

Huh? Fine dining should be limited to couples and "adult dudes or chicks who happen to be friends"? So, a family of adults (meaning, the parents and their adult children, along with their spouses) shouldn't be able to go out to a nice restaurant? :confused::confused::confused:

Was that really called for?