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We tend to go with TGITakeout. For the very reasons outlined above.
Now, see, I'm on the other side of the parenting spectrum. I prefer to take pseudonymous kid to real, grownup restaurants. Not that we don't also do places-with-crayons from time to time. Whether because we've always done restaurants, or because we are disgustingly lucky, he is usually perfectly well-mannered and willing to try almost any kind of food.
So my pet peeve is the people who want to ban children from grownup restaurants, on the grounds that all children are ill-behaved monsters. Though I'll totally agree with you on the thing about people who have never had kids being the best parents (insert conspiratorial parental eyeball roll here).
As a veteren waitress, I would respectfully submit that if your child has never had to take Restaurant Dining 101, then he is quite unique.
Squid and I took Restaurant Dining 101 for many years, every Saturday morning at Denny's. This procedure started when we were young, and by the time we were eight or so we were ready for adult restaurants, not necessarily four stars, but we wouldn't embarrass anyone. I guess the way we define restaurants appropriate for training have changed over the years.
Eh. Being an utter misanthrope, I'm personally of the opinion that if the average meal cost, per person, is into the double digits, your kid had better not be screaming. And by "screaming", I mean "screams at any point during the meal".
This is why I favor the policy that small children are allowed in any type of restaurant, but that their parents must wear scream-activated shock collars (the types that one uses on dogs to prevent barking).
And lest you think I'm picking exclusively on parents with children: same goes for people TALKING LOUDLY ON CELL PHONES ABOUT NOTHING IMPORTANT.
I'll see your "TALKING LOUDLY ON CELLPHONES ABOUT NOTHING IMPORTANT" and raise you a TALKING LOUDLY ON CELL PHONES, PERIOD.
Screaming children at least have the excuse of being too young to know better (to a point), and parents also have the excuse of engaging in child-rearing (also to a point), but full grown adults have no excuse. Restaurant conversations should be unobtrusive, and cell-phone ringers should be either silent or off.
Good point, Jake. Good point. I've just noticed that the importance of the conversation tends to be inversely proportionate to its loudness.
Or is that just the people around me? Opinions, anyone?
My son has loved Indian food almost since he started on solids, so in that regard we always know that there is one type of place we can go where he's guaranteed to like something and so are we. That said, I'd still feel a slight pang of guilt in a fancy restaurant if we were to disrupt someone's date fantasy by showing them precisely where it's destined to go from there. Slight.
I don't like the TGIF and Applebees type of restaurant because of the food, rude staff, and of course their soullessness (this is best illustrated by the flair in TGIFs), but mostly, the horribly loud staff assisted birthday celebrations. I startle easily and loud noises frighten me. More than once have I run terrified from one of these places. A no chain in this price range doesn't indulge in this awful custom.
We take our daughter to kid friendly restaurants of various types. Gandhi's on Devon, The Sea Ranch on Golf Rd etc. She has never been the only kid there, likes the food, and none of the staff are hooting and hollering HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! That said, if she decides to throw a tantrum we get the staff to pack up the rest and we go home.
My daughter likes spicy and exotic foods. She doesn't like beef. Maybe it was my diet of hot wings and other spicy food while pregnant and her first days nursing. More than on bottle of breast milk smelled distinctly of hot wings.
I'm
Dan - we have the same success with Thai food. Nothing beats Thai iced tea.
We like Borer Cafe the best lately. Its really LOUD in there already so nobody notices the kids. And mexican food is such that we can all share everything and everyone gets at least something in their bellies without any hysterics at all. If nothing else -- there are always chips.
Our kids mostly do okay. They each went through a phase around 2 when we couldn't take them out in public to eat... but it was just a phase.
Our romantic dinners now consist of chinese food on the sofa in front of a video after the kids go to bed. We never finish the video in one night though because we start to fall asleep in our chairs within an hour of the kids going to bed. And on the rare occasion that we have more energy, so do the kids and they pop out of bed 50 times until we give up and turn the movie off anyway.
My parents trained me at IHOP and Friendly's (I grew up in NY). You can't start with the fancy places - that's just insane. I think I went to my first "nice" restaurant when I was 9 or 10 - it was a local sit-down place that wasn't 4 start (we couldn't afford that) but also didn't have placemats with pictures on it.
Amen to the existence of TGIFriday's, although i haven't gone there since I first saw Office Space.
Amen, sister.
I also second the cell-phone rule.
I have tried to take my kids, but just when Jake became old enough to sit peacefully at the table and eat his burger or chicken fingers (ewww, chickens have fingers and we eat them?), Danny grew old enough to want to run full-tilt across the room many times in a row.
I'm a big fan of takeout right now. In another year or two, I'll get Danny better acquainted with restaurants, but right now it's just not worth it. The only way I'll do a restaurant is if the number of adults is double the number of kids, so there is always someone to walk around with and attempt to amuse whoever needs to wander.
That being said, I can't stand "breeder-haters" who think children should be locked up in soundproofed booths until they're of legal drinking age. I'm sure you puked on someone and screamed inappropriately when you were two years old, too.
Soon enough I'll be joining the ranks od parents, so I'm reading this with interest. As a kid, I remember strangers complementing my parents that we (the 6 kids) were so well behaved. It's kind of funny from my perspective that people thought we were well behaved, cause dinner was the only time that happened. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that dinner was sacred family time. We sat at the dinner table, had to use good table manners, say please, etc. We also had to mke conversation, we couldn't just jump up and watch TV or wahtever. We had to tell talk about our day or come up with something to talk about like Polar Bear eating habits. I hope we'll be able to have regular sit down dinner too, so the kid can learn these social skills.
Flea, if it helps at all, my standard tip when I dine out with pseudonymous kid is 25-30%. More if the waiter is good-natured and smart and automatically brings things like extra napkins the minute we sit down.
And no, he never screams. Because he knows that if he's too loud, we are leaving right now and mama is going to be very pissed, and no one wants mama to be pissed at them, ever. The worst he does is accidental spills (which adults do too and which I damn well wipe up myself--I've waited tables as well), and of late, rolling over into the turtle position on his chair when he's finished eating and has grown bored--which I am insisting he realize is terrible manners, and completely unacceptable, and (whispering) sit up right now. But at least it is quiet and needn't disturb other people unless they're hopeless busybodies.
My grandparents took me out for dinner all the time. I was determined to mimic this with my daughter so that she would learn how to act while out. If it weren't for the family friendly "training restaurants" out there I'm not sure I would have been so eager to try this. She's three now and she does pretty well - when I can get her to stop flirting with the waiter!
JT - I hear you. Just remember that the best parents have no children, so how can you possibly measure up? In the meantime, if you want to socialize your child, you *have* to bring them out into society and teach them how to interact with others. Which leads me to Dr. B's comment:
Dr. B - I think that's a crucial element of restaurant training, and you usually start having to do it when they're around 2. You have to be willing to leave *immediately* when they start acting up. I understand that it's hard and irritating, and hey, parents are hungry, too, but it must be done. Not only is it disturbing to other patrons and dangerous for them to be out of their seat (if you've ever tripped over an unruly child while carrying a hot pot of coffee balanced on your tray, you'd understand how horribly frightening that is), but the plus side is that it teaches them good manners a lot more quickly.
I forgot Mary's comment - that's exactly what I'm trying to do, and why I take them out as often as possible. By the age of 3, even with Alex's behavioral disorder, he was (and is) pretty darned good in restaurants.
We're now going through fits with Christopher, who's just turned 2. Sometimes Steve or I have to take him out, while we let Alex finish eating. It's harder with two, because you don't want to punish the one who's behaving himself.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. My kids have always been pretty good when they have something to color with or a game to play. You have to stock the car with a lunch pail full of crayons and a couple of workbooks. My older daughter (
recently discovered the bowling game on my cell phone.
I disagree that the full range of restaurants leaves us folks with wee lads and lasses at Applebees. Are there really no independent businesses in your area? I'd sooner have my legs chewed off by rabid weasels than eat at TGIF. That's microwave-McDonald's for grown-ups.
Oops. that was an "8" not a .
When I waited tables at TGIF in college, I didn't mind the kids who were obviously in training. Especially when they were taught to be respectful of the waitstaff. Much appreciated were the parents who brought their own drop cloths/mats. I would have tipped THEM for making my life so much easier. It was the parents who let their kids take 20 minutes to make up their mind while I stood there trying to take their order that I resented. When I was a kid, Mom would ask us in the parking lot what we wanted. We knew what we were having when we sat down.
And the parents who let their kids order the waitstaff around. You expect to have to be subservient to rude adults, even teenagers when you’re a server. It comes with the job. But letting little Rodney order me around like a dictator? That’s just wrong. Let them throw stuff on the ground just to watch me pick it up. Let them throw a tantrum and SCREAM at me to GET ME SOME X!! With no please or thankyou, that was humiliating.
Mustang Sally,that is when you wait til Little Rodney's parents aren't paying attention and whisper something in his ear like "I'm gonna kick your little ass."
Ralph - in the city, it's great (of course). Out here in Suburban Heck, there's such a dearth of independently owned restaurants that it's not to be believed.
There's one diner that we go to on occasion. None of the waitstaff will ever see 75 again, so they tend to be verrrrryyy slow. We have a bag full of rubber snakes, frogs, crayons, sketch pads, and dominos, and that seems to work okay for at least a little while.
Mustang Sally, you and I could trade hundreds of war stories, I bet.
Dining out... Mine is 13 months, and since I loathe cooking, we eat out at least once a week. We often go to the Mexican place just up the road from our house. They adore our daughter (or at least pretend really well). They also have a tile floor, which is easier to clean up than the carpets most other places have. We try to be responsible parents and pick up all the stuff she drops on the floor, and take her outside if she's getting fussy.
Most irritating thing I ever saw with parents in restaurants was when I was pregnant: A woman with a child of about 6 showed her the menu and said, "Do you want the regular salad or the caesar salad?" and then when the kid said, "caesar," she said, "No, I think you want the regular." She did it again for the entree. Please, folks, don't pretend to offer them a choice and then yank it away! That's gotta be bad for the kid's psyche or something...
Flea (and other Chicagoans)--I highly recommend Leona's. We've been taking stepkid there for at least three years (he just turned 7)--usually the same one, on Franklin, so the waitstaff all know us--and they're great. The food's good, there's not a lot of flair, it's not a big chain, etc. It has also worked really well as a training restaurant--we took kid to a grown-up restaurant as a special treat, and he behaved extremely well, so I think the training paid off.
Carla, I agree with the food and atomosphere at Leona's but the service on the South Side is so slow that no toddler, or adult, can handle it for too long. Maybe it's just me, but it happens everytime I try.
Try one of the others, if you can get to them. The one on Franklin has free parking (!) after 6:00 pm (I think that's the timing). The staff there is great.
At this point in my life, the louder and more garish the ambience the better. James either goes to sleep in his Bjorn or stares out placidly at the chaos. Either scenario means that Mommy gets to eat her meal.
We are very conscientous about bolting for the door if he cries, because I always swore to myself (and catte) that I wouldn't be one of those parents who ruins somebody's else good time. But in Red Robin-type places, singular squawks or hee-hawing baby laughter are not even audible above the din, so it's much easier to relax.
Just for the sake of argument, aren't loud places that cover the kid din actually worse for restaurant training? Because it sort of just gives the kid permission to act badly, and sets a standard that loud/messy/scribbling on the tablecloth is okay--so when you take them to a place that isn't a fucking circus, they act like monkeys?
Dr. B - Your theory makes sense, but it hasn't worked out that way. My kids tune out other diners, so the noise level in these kinds of places really just serves to make the parents feel better. If your two year old drops a plate on the table at a quieter restaurant, it gets even more quiet as everyone turns to stare at you (personal experience talking). Noisy places haven't influenced my kids behavior; Steve and I have been the influences as we teach them to use their inside voices. Once Alex learned passable table manners, we started taking him to hipper places. Now that Christopher has reached that loud age, we're back at the training grounds.
And they know the difference between paper and fabric, so drawing on actual tableclothes hasn't been a problem.
To be more clear, I don't take my children to places where I can allow/encourage them to behave badly, I take them to places that are tolerant of toddler personalities in order to teach them how to behave, so they do not disturb delicate diners like Teal Toast while they learn.
Flea, I'm not--and never was--talking about responsible parents like you who actually take your kids outside once they start screaming, and do not take them to fancy places if they are at an age/stage of development where they are likely to scream.
I'm talking about the people who sit there chatting away while their child shrieks at the top of its lungs (and while I'm clearly not a parent, doesn't the kid screaming generally mean it needs attention in some way *besides* dirty looks from other diners?)
I'm talking about the people who let their kids run around throwing their forks at other diners. I don't mean isolated incidents of fork-throwing, either, as you mentioned in your original post. I mean for twenty freakin' minutes at a time, while they merrily sip their champagne and chat with their dining partners.
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And I'm talking about the people who take their child (who is generally too young to know any better; in the zero to twenty-four months phase) to a fancy restaurant, put it in a high chair, and abandon it completely except to ineffectually "shhhhh" it when it's been crying for fifteen minutes on end.
I wasn't trying to upset any of you (responsible, competent) parents, and I wasn't trying to troll. My apologies if I was perceived that way.
Well, actually flea I think we're in total agreement. Mostly where we take pseudonymous kid is the kind of restaurant where the owner is on the premises, where the atmosphere is nice without being super-fancy, and where the waiters are friendly/competent enough to deal with the extra patience required of kids ordering a little slowly or needing extra napkins (for which we tip handsomely indeed--I've noticed that we're usually welcomed back with smiles). I just have a bug up my ass about the idea that kids can't ever go to nice restaurants, because mine can and does.
Teal Toast, I think this comment from you: 'And by "screaming", I mean "screams at any point during the meal".' was what other posters and I found irritating.
Screaming does not always mean they "need" attention, often it means they "want" attention. Children (and toddlers especially - they're the ones who usually need restaurant trainging) are a bottomless pit where attention is concerned. If you paid constant attention to your child (again, what they want, not what they need) you'd never be able to eat your own meal. And sometimes they scream just to hear their own voices. Their behavior is not always in our control, because they're still learning, and it is extremely irritating to have people who don't have children assume that it is and judge us negatively for it.
I would also add that food that costs in the single digits is very often fast food. Relegating us to McDonald's means that our children will get fat and sugar-laden food every time we eat out, at which point we'll be blamed for making them fat.
If it isn't your intention to troll, that's fine, and I appreciate the apology. But please consider that even Dr. B's child has screamed at least ONCE in a restaurant, and perhaps she doesn't deserve to have to wear a "shock collar" for it.
Dr B - I don't think we really disagree either. Steve and I are in that wasteland right now where it's best that we go to more child-oriented places (NOT Chuck-E-Cheeze, for God's sake), but hopefully in a few months Christopher will be ready.
I do take them to a funky little place in the city for lunch on Wednesdays after school. We have the same server every week, also a parent, and she knows how to get kids in and out of a restaurant in no time. It's unbelievable how much good service makes a difference.
Charles-of-the-Cheese is hideous. I went with stepkid and dad once, and (a) the pizza was, without a doubt, the worst pizza I've ever tasted, and (b) the "french fries" were apparently made of undercooked library paste; even the stepkid pronounced them "nasty." Are you willing to share the name of the funky little place? We're always on the lookout for places to take the kid.
Oh, I know you've heard of it, Carla. It's the Zephyr at Ravenswood and Wilson. If you go, ask for Tina. She's our regular waitress, and she's fantastic with kids - she gets their meals out to them in less than 5 minutes, every time.
G. and i just took Daughter L. to a nice (as in friendly) neighborhood Italian place tonight. We hadn't been there for a while--last time L. had been there, it had been with G. and my parents, while I was out of town, and apparently it was something of an evening to remember. But tonight it went just great. I agree with you, flea, about the difference the server can make. I doubt that our server has children--she looked awfully young--but she sure was good with L. and was constantly checking on us to keep things moving along (but in a really considerate, not "let's get going, folks", kind of a way). It was great to remember that most of the time L. is really very good (for a 2-1/2 year old) in restaurants--it's just the horrid times that a person tends to remember, unfortunately.
Flea, I love you. Seriously.
I'm another non-parent, not planning on parenting, and I really appreciate the work you are doing to train your kids.
As a nonparent (everyone's aunt), I completely appreciate the existence of TGIF's and Applebees precisely b/c none of my friends have children who can behave in a better restaurant, but these are places where I can still have a drink and hence enjoy the kids-at-dinner, not be irritated by them.
We don't have chain restaurants in my NYC neighborhood. This leads to far too many two year olds screaming at 10 pm in restaurants that are dark and contain sharp knives and full bars, i.e., places for those of us who are still looking to get laid.
Forty years ago, at my aunt and uncle's hotel in the Adirondacks, I was only allowed to eat in the dining room when I was accompanied by a parent and eating (pre-customer-dinner-hour) with the staff.
Then again, when I was 3, I insisted my mother and her friend wear their napkins tucked into their necklines just like I had to do mine.
"We don't have chain restaurants in my NYC neighborhood"
That's because Jesus loves big cities best of all.
My son is like BitchPhD's pseudonomous kid - he is extraordinarily well-behaved. Always has been. I could take him to adult movies when he was a baby and I took him to adult restaurants since moving to Massachusetts. The kid ate boullabaisse and liked it! There's a saying that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. God knew it was a big mistake giving me a kid at all and handed me a pint-sized Jon Stewart to make up for it.
I used to love going to TGIFridays when I was working my first jobs out of college. I never noticed the screaming rugrats. I and my work buddies were too busy guzzling the margaritas to notice.
Flea, you're right about Thai iced tea. That stuff is to die for.
Thanks for the Zephyr waitress tip. I've had some reaaallllly slow service at Zephyr, presumably not from Tina. I will ask for her next time so I can order a meal and ice cream, instead of having to choose between them. 64-ounce milkshake, here I come!
Thanks, Flea--I had never heard of the place--until two weeks ago, when someone at a dinner recommended it to the SO. We'll definitely check it out. (Friday we went back to the Big L, though, after the kid's soccer game.)
"and she knows how to get kids in and out of a restaurant in no time. "
Oh, I forgot the TGIF golden rule of waiting on kids: No matter what you get the kid's food order into the kitchen first and on the table first, even if the parent's food is still cooking. And always offer saltine crackers in the meantime. Kids can't scream if their mouths are full :p
Train your kids at home! I don't care what restaurant I'm at, I don't want to deal with your kids.
If you can't cook for your family and need to go out, and you know your children are beasts, get takeout!
No place is it acceptable to act out, as a child or adult. If your child is acting badly, you have an obligation to the other diners to remove them from the situration. They are paying customers as well.
I'm sure I sound like a jerk, but I believe out culture has lost a great sense of respect for others and it shows by our attitudes twords how we act in public places; like restaurants.
I've also noticed that the people who use cell phones the most are the people that need them the least.
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