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Noisy kids in restaurants. We've all been a restaurant, trying to have a nice adult or romantic meal, and there's a family with small kids in there as well. Now, I don't have a problem with well behaved children and their parents having a nice quiet civilised meal together. Even a little bit of childish excitement is OK, as long as they don't go too mad. But parents who use a meal out in a restaurant as an excuse to stop being a parent for a few hours really wind me up, more so than the children.
Letting their kids scream and shout, and in the worst case, run about the place screaming. Not only does it ruin everybody else's meals, it's not fair on the staff that have to carry around numerous plates of hot food that they should be dodging kids running around their feet. Or have to stop them from making mischief and take them back to their parents. You know that if one of these kids runs into a waiter/waitress who is carrying a hot plate of food and they drop it on a kids head, the parent is going to go absolutely mental and sue for as much as they can, when their kids comes running back to the table covered in a someones chicken soup.
Numerous times I've been tempted to stick out a leg and trip over a child who is running past my table. It might seem a bit severe, but how else will they learn that running around in a restaurant isn't a good idea? Don't deny that you haven't wanted to do it! Harvester's are the worst. I know its a family restaurant, but that does not mean its a child care centre. The waiters/waitresses are employed to take orders and serve food, not look after kids.
My solution, kids should be assessed upon entering the restaurant, if they are deemed to be calm and well behaved enough they can enter, if they walk in screaming or come running in, they should be sent back out again. Either that or no kids under the age of 10 in any restaurants. Go to Macdonalds if you want to let your kids run around and create mischief. Don't ruin restaurants for the rest of us
By: Chris
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They sit, with a inane-gormless grin on their face, looking around to see who is "observing them" as if it's some sort of contest, women with babies are the worst.
As for the show offs who whip a breast out to feed, do they expect to be awarded extra points, or a medal? when did this become normal behaviour in a cafe?
When the local Poundshop starts selling "child friendly" gags, I will buy a few and hand them out to the selfish parents that impose their wonderful-brilliant-golden-boy-girl-brat on the rest of us, who just want to sit and have a cup of coffee.......I mean latte.
One of the women started to loudly hum some sort of Polish/Czech dance tune to which the 2 toddlers started dancing. The woman kept looking around with a big grin on her face, obviously expecting the other patrons of the shop to be entertained by this. Judging from the stony stares, frowns and sighs that I heard around me, entertainment was certainly not the desired outcome; rather, it was great irritation. I noticed a few people get up quite hurriedly and leave. British politeness in this case was a problem in that nobody, including myself, voiced a complaint - as if a guy sitting alone reading the newspaper quietly would dare to complain about children!
If only parents would understand - of whatever nationality - that generally speaking people outside of their family do not have the slightest bit of interest in their children. If they insist on taking their children into coffee shops and restaurants (and oh for an 'adults only' establishment!), then they must behave accordingly. That applies to the adults also, as well as the children. In fact, in this case, the adults were more of the problem than their children.
But these days many parents are clueless because they're inherently selfish themselves so don't give two hoots about their kids causing a nuisance to others. Personally I think restaurants should ask misbehaving kids and their idiot parents to leave.
If I ever open a coffee lounge it will definitely be NO KIDS ALLOWED because it will be designed as a place where adults can go to chill out and socialise without brats running about.
Frustrated