Tips for bringing your child to a nice restaurant:

Tip #1 - DON'T!

Tip #2 - If you have any questions, see Tip #1

Friday evening, Kathy & I attempted to enjoy a Wedding Anniversary co-celebration with another couple at one of our favorite restaurants, Tigelleria in Campbell (previously reviewed HERE ). It's really quite a nice place. The food is great, the service is usually excellent, though Friday it was a bit off. The problem though was not the service, nor the food. The problem was the patently inconsiderate, self absorbed jerkoffs at the next table. 



The table next to ours was attended by a young couple with their ~2yr old child and the child's Grandparents. Through the entire meal the kid was whining and fussing, bored to tears, crying, screaming, getting out of his chair and running around the dinning room and generally being a complete nuisance to everyone in the restaurant including the wait staff. On two or three occasions the Grandmother or one of the parents would attempt to hold the child, stand and walk around the dinning room (oh, thanks for bringing him closer!) or take him outside for a time. All to no avail. Each attempt to quiet the child lasted 2min tops. Each time the kid would begin his intolerable racket anew. 


The couple made no attempt whatsoever to apologize to the diners around them. They sat and ate their dinner, drank their wine and then took their time chatting and eating desert. All the while their mewling rug rat continued to wail, unabated, while they went about their business all at a leisurely pace and with not a whit of contrition to their fellow diners. 


If you are reading this and have a child, understand this; Nobody thinks your child is cute when he/she is interrupting our meal. You don't have a right to a "nice night out" where doing so necessarily requires that I put up with the inappropriate behavior of your snot-nosed progeny. If you want to "go out to dinner" to a Denny's or Applebees and bring your kid along, fine. Nobody has an expectation of a peaceful and convivial dinning experience in such an establishment. But if the restaurant has a wine list its a different story. If the meal costs more than about $25 a person your kid DOES NOT BELONG THERE unless you can be 100% certain that they can sit, quietly, for the entire duration of your meal and if something changes you should be prepared to quickly leave so as not to ruin other people's evening because your ankle biter can't keep his/her yap shut.


Granted, there is some responsibility here on the part of the restaurant management. They should have asked the party to leave since they were being a nuisance and disturbing the rest of their patrons. But ultimately the guilt rests on the parents.