Last night, for the first time in a long time, I saw a family ejected from a restaurant for poor behavior. This is a good thing, but what's bothering me is just how bad their behavior had to get before they were shown the door.
The group was a man and his two preteen daughters, and they were, unfortunately, seated at the table next to the one my husband and I were at.
1. None of them met the restaurant's dress code. The dress code was clearly posted, in several places, as: jacket and tie for men, skirt/dress/slacks for women, and absolutely no tank tops, jeans, or sneakers. Dad was wearing a jacket, but no tie, and the top 2 buttons of his shirt were undone. Both girls were wearing tank tops and sneakers; one was also in jeans.
2. This isn't so much ejection-worthy as just boorish: There were some wonderful things on the menu, like steak, chicken, pasta, seafood, etc. What does dad order for his girls? Pizza and fries.
Now, if you have a 5-year-old who won't eat anything but pizza, that's ok, but a 12-year-old should at least be given the opportunity to try something that's not on the kiddie menu. Speaking of which, I saw no sign of a kiddie menu, and I know pizza wasn't on the regular menu, so the chef probably had to prepare it especially for them. And it wasn't like dad was being cheap - dinner was prix fixe.
3. The kids were running around the restaurant like wild animals. In a 3-year-old, that kind of behavior is semi-excusable if it happens once or twice, as long as the parents scold him, and take him outside if he continues to be disruptive. In a 12-year-old it shouldn't even happen once.
4. Now here's the really egregious part. When my husband and I sat down, we noticed a bottle of wine on this table. The two girls obviously were too young to drink; it was all for dad. We didn't really think anything of it; perhaps he intended to drink it slowly during dinner, linger over the last glass with his dessert, etc. That wasn't quite what happened... by the time the appetizers were finished, so was the wine. Seeing that he was out of wine, he ordered a second bottle! He was visibly intoxicated (I suspect he'd had something before starting in on the wine), but he was served anyway.
As they finished their main course, the waiter came over to them; I didn't hear what he said, but I surmise that he was asking them politely to leave. So dad bolted his glass of wine like it was water and he'd just run a marathon
and staggered toward the door, daughters in tow.
Ugh.
25 years ago they wouldn't have been allowed in the restaurant in the first place, for not meeting the dress code. Now the guy's drunk and letting his kids run wild, and they don't even cut him off?? And is it so wrong of me to think that preteens should be able to behave themselves in a restaurant??
</rant>
How standards in our society have deteriorated!
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