#1 Know the Restaurant
There’s a reason why “family restaurants” exist. They have balloons and crayons and coloring books and games and pop music and changing tables and high chairs and booster seats and plastic cups with straws and children’s menus. If you’re really, really lucky, they might have a liquor license and thus also cater to the parents. Family restaurants happily serve families and we encourage families to support them!
Fine dining establishments might (might!) have high chairs and they might (might!) have children’s meals available. Choose your restaurant to fit your dining needs.
#2 Please Remain Seated
Restaurants are not playgrounds. Period.
Climbing, crawling, jumping, running, stumbling, walking, wandering children are unbalanced obstacles over which patrons and servers can and do fall. Or spill hot soup. Or toss salad. Or break glass. Such children pose a real and present danger to themselves and others in a dining environment.
If children can’t remain seated throughout the dining experience, if they can’t sit still, they aren’t ready for going out to breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
And that’s O.K.. That’s why fast food chains and outdoor parks with play areas exist.
#3 Escort Service
Potty Breaks are NOT recess. To maintain a safe and enjoyable environment (see No. 2) and to safeguard children in a public place, escort children to the restroom/s.
#4 Ban Banquette Bouncing / Limit Lap Seating
Children who bounce on the banquettes – those long upholstered booths – or leap from one diner’s lap to another’s are destructive and disruptive. Respect the restaurant’s furniture and save the lap for dessert. (See Nos. 1 & 2)
#5 Exponential Tipping
The more disorderly, the more undisciplined, the more egregious the behavior, the more the tip should increase. Exponentially. Period. (See Nos. 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Afterword
Years ago, before we became a family, my husband and I would request “No Smoking / No Children” seating at restaurants. We didn’t begrudge a family’s night out, we just didn’t want to have our evening dominated by someone else’s family shenanigans.
Then we became a family and realized that sometimes we just needed to get out of the house at mealtime. We learned that sometimes kids just can’t handle dining out and sometimes kids just lose all control in public. Our appreciation for baby-sitters and for take home containers has grown over the years. We also became eternally grateful to “family restaurants” and those saints who work in them.
We hope that Cami’s Rules to Dine By, guidelines we developed at our friend Cami’s restaurant and that we repeat to our young children (even at the zoo!), increase your family’s dining pleasure and keep you welcome at your favorite restaurants.
