Quote:
Originally Posted by The Big Kahuna
Lets keep the kids at McDonalds and the other fast food places and leave the good places to the adults.
|
Several years ago, when we had a child who was at the time 10 years old, we had reservations at a very popular Center Harbor restaurant, which I named in another thread but will not name now, and they seated our party of six at a table in the bar that was about two square feet in area, for a high-end, sit-down dinner, again for six people. When we asked why we could not be seated in the dining room when we had dinner reservations for six, we were told that with a "kid" in our party, the dining roon was off limits for us. For the record, our youngest was 10 at the time, but all others were 16+.
Now that our children range in age from 13 to 24 and some with significant others, we still refuse to spend our hard earned money at this restaurant and we will never go there again, even if many think this is the best restaurant in Center Harbor. Our party size is usually 8 and with top choices on the menu and good wines for all of legal age, our bill is usually in the $450+ range and often tops $600. We will never forget the rude reception we had at this restaurant and they will never see one penny of our family's money as long as they are in business.
For those of you in the restaurant business facing hard times in today's economy, please be aware that a policy of "no children in the dining room" is coming back to bite you, right in the pocketbook at a time when I believe it really hurts. Please be aware, kids get older and become paying customers, in time. In addition, mis-treated customers in the form of families, have very, very good memories. Please be fair to all families. Control the few that are out-of-control, but admit all without restriction.
That all said, some families have zero control over their children and should be asked to leave restaurants due to their disruption of the dining experience for other guests. I think the restaurants must control their guests, no matter how old they are. When we were seated in the bar in the experience noted above, many of the bar patrons were loudly swearing and were very vocal, both poor behaviors that should have been addressed by a restaurant that expected an appropriate environment for all their customers, as we were told when we were refused a table in the dining room. Although they refuse to service us in an appropirate setting, they did nothing to control the out-of-control adults in the bar area.
Clearly the bar was not an appropriate environment for children and we decided to leave and never return.
If anyone wants to know the name of the restaurant, send me a PM and I will respond. I am now 60 years old and I will remember and share my experience about this with any interested parties for the rest of my life. This was, and still is from what I am told, very poor restaurant decision making and management.
They should be "up the creek" without a paddle.
R2B