Tuesday 24 August 2010

Kids in Restaurants

What? Me?!
Morning everyone. I thought I'd broaden the subjects in this blog to, as its name suggests, "All Things Cretinous". I'd love to know what you think of each post, let me know using the comments box below each post. You don't need to log in or anything. Anybody can post a comment.

So anyway, for the first of these new blog subjects, kids in restaurants. We've all been a restaurant, trying to have a nice adult or romantic meal, and there's a family with small kids in there aswell. Now, I don't have a problem with well behaved children and their parents having a nice quiet civilized meal together. Even a little bit of childish excitement is ok, as long as they don't go too mad. But parents who use a meal out in a restaurant as an excuse to stop being a parent for a few hours really wind me up, more so than the children.



Letting their kids scream and shout, and in the worst case, run about the place screaming. Not only does it ruin everybody else's meals, it's not fair on the staff that have to carry around numerous plates of hot food that they should be dodging kids running around their feet. Or have to stop them from making mischief and take them back to their parents. You know that if one of these kids runs into a waiter/waitress who is carrying a hot plate of food and they drop it on a kids head, the parent is going to go absolutely mental and sue for as much as they can, when their kids comes running back to the table covered in someones chicken soup.

Numerous times I've been tempted to stick out a leg and trip over a child who is running past my table. Or give them a gentle push that knocks them off course and sends them into the floor. That'll teach them. (Calm down, I said tempted, not actually seriously considered it!) Don't deny that you haven't wanted to do it! Harvester's are the worst. I know its a family restaurant, but that does not mean its a child care centre. The waiters/waitresses are employed to take orders and serve food, not look after kids.

Entry denied.
My solution, kids should be assessed upon entering the restaurant, if they are deemed to be calm and adult like, they can enter, if they walk in screaming or come running in, they should be sent back out again. Either that or no kids under the age of 10 in any restaurants. Go to Macdonalds if you want to let your kids run around and create mischief. Don't ruin restaurants for the rest of us.

Thanks, for reading. Let me know if you agree or disagree. Lets get a discussion going on this.

Chris

12 comments:

Steve said...

I totally agree, I can't stand it. I like it when you catch somebody else's eye who is clearly thinking the same thing as you. And that thought is usually, where the f*** are the parents of these little brats

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the supermarkets..Kids running havoc there. It even worse then a restaurant.

Chris said...

@Steve, exactly. The most annoying thing is that the parents use it as time off, the expect the staff to deal with it and everyone else to put up with it!

@Anon, yeah, it is bad in supermarkets. But at least you're not trying to have a civilized meal in a supermarket. And you can walk away from them.

Katie said...

is this something that should be added to school curriculums? how to sit nicely in a restaurant??

Chris said...

@Katie Yes, and the parents should be made to come along to the lessons aswell!

Gail Is This Mutton? said...

What are you doing in a Harvester in the first place?

Chris said...

@Gail - It's Katie's favourite eatery. Cucumber and croutons salad bowl, breaded mushrooms, steak or grilled chicken and some sort of chocolate based desert. Nevertheless, we haven't been back there since.

Katie said...

hardly favourite - but i do enjoy a crouton! will see about those lessons...

Toughcookie said...

I would definitely not go to a Harvester or any other "Fun Pub" for a meal for that very reason. If I go to a restaurant and see some kids in there, my heart sinks. In the past, only well brought up, well behaved children would be taken to restaurants, as there were rules about behaviour back then (sadly,long-since abandoned). Mind you, having said that, I've also had meals ruined by badly behaved adults!

Chris said...

@Toughcookie, I know what you mean about the badly behave adults!

I remember when I was a child, there was never any question that I would go out for a meal and run around or misbehave. Because that's what you're there for, to have a meal. Or maybe my parents just had some common decency and didn't stop being parents, just because there are other adults around that will deal with it.

Fesant Plucka said...

it's not just restaurants, I used to work in a DIY store and it was a daily occurrence, one I remember in particular was a woman came up to our info desk with her child covered in black paint demanding to know what the manager was going to do about replacing ruined clothes(designer of course) manager asked how the paint had got there and woman said the tin had fallen from the shelf (like they do) and spilt all over her poor darling! manger was just about to fill in accident form and ask woman to send in receipts when an elderley lady came walking up to desk with black paint down the front of her clothes saying that the young lad had been running around the store with the tin of paint in his hands and ran into elderley lad causing lid to pop off and cover them both in paint. manager said to woman and child 'can I take your details for this lady so that she can bill you for her damaged clothes as a result of your sons action and your failure to control your child'? Cue a very embarrassed woman and child making a swift exit. Made no offer to the elderley lady to replace/clean her clothes. absolutely incredulous.

Chris said...

@Fesant Plucka. Great story! The audacity of some people is unbelievable!

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