NO CHILDREN ALLOWED – Do You Agree Some Restaurants Stance on this Topic?

A popular restaurant on Monterey wharf in California recently made headlines with its restaurant signs. The restaurant has three signs posted which prohibit strollers, high chairs, loud kids, crying babies and even booster seats. Link: “Northern California restaurant bans noisy children from dining room”.

This certainly isn’t the first restaurant to show apprehension in allowing children in their restaurants. Even some acclaimed Chicago restaurants are turning away patrons with children and even more fine dining restaurants in the area are cautiously considering it.

There are always two sides of every debate. Both chefs and parenting experts alike are asking for new restaurant policies and a little bit more understanding when it comes to bringing your children to dinner with you. (insert quote from parent or parenting expert here).

Parents of young babies and toddlers are fuming over some restaurant’s resistance to let patrons and their munchkins dine out without judgment. In the U.S. you’ll find most parents’s both work full-time and when they do spend an evening on the town, they want to bring their child(ren) with them. Another fair point that favors those parents who want to bring their kids to dinner is the fact that learning proper restaurant etiquette can only be done (you guessed it) if you put them in that environment.

The other side to this growing debate is this: Why should other restaurant goers have to suffer through the noise of a young child? You’ll find that opera’s, symphony orchestras and other cultural events don’t allow children of a certain age through their doors and this isn’t plastered all over the front page of every newspaper or shown in Twitter feeds across the world. If hard working adults are forking out a small fortune to eat at an upscale restaurant, shouldn’t the following be true: Why can’t adults have a place, too?

So what’s the right answer or is there one? What do you think? Do you think it’s the parent’s responsibility to gage whether or not their child can survive a night out in an upscale restaurant? Or should parent’s simply be proactive and not put themselves, their children or other patrons through what could possibly turn into a night of squabbles and squeals? Or should we all have a little more patience and sympathy for everyone involved?