We had a family gathering at a steakhouse - a good excuse to get my MIL out of her apartment - so there were 4 generations around the table, ages from 15 months to 91 years old. Looking at the two kids, my MIL commented that the first time she dined out was after she was married - she would have been 18 or 19 at the time.
When we were kids, my dad would take the whole family out for a really, really nice meal when he got his Christmas bonus, and on very rare occasions, we’d get to go to McD’s as a special treat. I don’t recall going to a restaurant before I was about 10 or so.
My daughter and my grandkids all went to restaurants when still babies. I remember having to leave one place because my daughter absolutely wouldn’t stop crying and we didn’t want the whole place to have to suffer. And yesterday, I watched my 4-y/o granddaughter give her order to the server quite politely.
I don’t recall it, but it was probably sometime in 1958 when I was less than 1 year old, and it was probably at the one closest to our home, which still exists (tho run by different people) and which I last dined at late last fall.
When I was 6 we moved to Paris, and I can clearly remember eating in the hotel restaurant before we got our apartment, and then later eating out at cafes and restaurants.
I probably went to restaurants before that, in the US, I just don’t really remember.
I do know that every summer we went (and still go) to a small ‘club’ in the mountains, and part of the routine is weekend meals in the club dining room. It’s not a public restaurant, per se, but it is a big room full of people with wait staff bringing food and public manners required. That started when I was an infant, so … It’s been a long time.
We didn’t eat out lots, but it was hardly unusual either.
I can’t recall a specific first time, but I do remember eating in a sit down restaurant while Mom held my youngest brother as an infant. I’m 4 years 6 months older than him. So I’d have been near my 5th birthday then. Again probably not my first time, just first remembered time. I ordered my own meal pretty early in the process once I could read. Parents did not believe in the “kids menu” much; they tried hard to ensure our tastes didn’t stagnate at hotdogs & mac’n’cheez. Chicken nuggets were, thankfully, still 20 years in the future.
We also did occasional takeout at a local fried chicken joint before KFC was invented. I can picture being inside it and know about where it was in town, but it disappeared decades ago. I’d have been near the same age then, so 5-ish.
All this would have been in suburban SoCal in ~1963.
My family didn’t have a lot of money, so we ate at home (Mum was a good cook!)
When I was 16, some of my chess team took me out to a restaurant for the first time.
It was a curry place - and I had never eaten any type of food apart from basic English (i.e. fish + chips, sausages and beans, roast dinner on Sundays.)
So despite helpful advice like:
have a Tandoori chicken (no sauce, just baked)
have chicken Korma (very mild)
I ordered … egg + chips!
(Happily since then I have discovered the delights of curries, French, Italian, Chinese etc.)
For a person to remember or not remember the first time they ate in a restaurant would, in my opinion, be a very generational thing. I’m 70 and my father was basically a good person but wasn’t prone to spending money. I don’t recall the first time in a restaurant but I do recall it was a rare occurrence. We had relatives in another city that we visited from time to time when I was a child and I do recall we stopped at a certain restaurant in a town about half way between the two cities during the travel.
What I do remember, however, was the first time I ever had “take out” food. We were travelling to this particular city and we picked up a “take out” order at the “new” fish and chip restaurant that was near where my aunt and uncles house was while on our way there. My aunt, uncle and grandparents were all at their house when we arrived with that food. This was probably late 1964 or early '65.
What I don’t remember was how the timing was all arranged so the food would be hot. This is of course, LONG before texting, cell phones, etc. What I do remember was the food was hot and delicious and the take out boxes were wrapped in newspaper.
That restaurant, by the way, is still in business owned by descendants of the same family, just in a newer location not far from its original location.
I was told many times of the extra large tips my parents would leave when I got more rice on the floor and seat than into my mouth, so I’m assuming pretty young. Even if this was just a single incident.
I remember going to restaurants occasionally with my parents as a very young child. Nothing fancy— family-style diners: The Clock; Ram’s Horn; Big Boy; Denny’s; those sorts of places. It was a happy occasion for me because I got to order pancakes and chocolate milk for dinner.
I can’t recall sitting in a full-up high chair & tray at a restaurant, although I do have fuzzy memories of doing that at home. Which would place me up to about age 2-1/2 to maybe almost 3.
But I recall lots of clambering up into the booster seats restaurants commonly had back in the day that simply sat upon the bench seat of a restaurant booth. So I’d have been 3 or 4 then.
Aside:
The idea that the booster seat should be attached somehow to the booth bench or the kid attached somehow to the booster seat would have seemed somewhere between comical and insane back then. Nowadays a child is always strapped into / onto something unless being carried by a parent. And even then there’s often a leash attached to the kid. The past was another world. Or maybe the present is another world. Harrumph!!
I couldn’t possibly remember the first time. I’m certain I was brought into the restaurants with my family as an infant. What I can offer, however, is that one of my earliest memories takes place at a restaurant. Gabatoni’s Pizza in Springfield, IL – they had these little bottles of pickled pepperocini in brine on the table. Mom told me it was a bottle like a baby would drink out of, so I took a swig. Put me off hot & spicy food for life.
I also remember being about 8 or 9 when my Mom decided that we’d do a fun mother/son activity and we went to Red Lobster (a yuge expense for my lower middle class family). That’s a fun memory.
I can’t say that I remember my first time as such, but here’s seemingly the earliest instance I remember. I would have been 3 or 4, and my parents took me to a place called “Burger Train” that existed somewhere in Toronto, I can’t for the life of me say where, probably in some strip mall. Other than the train that was on its sign, I don’t have clear recollections of the place. For all I know, it might have been my first time.
This is something that I don’t remember, but was told about as an adult. At about the same age, my parents once invited a colleague of my father’s and his wife to Rosa’s Place, a fancy Italian restaurant. It used to be in Toronto, and apparently still exists in Woodbridge just North of Toronto. The way it was described, the guests were embarassed because they had expected a cheap pizza place or something. Someone else was having a birthday party, and apparently we joined in in singing “Happy Birthday”. Again no memory of this event (or of the restaurant), but my family did eat out quite regularly, including in nice places.
I was about 4 years old the first time we went to a small family diner in our town of about 1000 people. I recall this because I was told to stop chewing the gum I found under the table.
Also went to my first bar at that time, I sat on the bar and drank Sprite with my dad. Learned how to play pool at that place and met my first girlfriend out front of their when she rode her horse to town. The bar is still there and is run by the people who owned the family diner I first ate at.
I think I would have been around six when I was first allowed to sit with the grownups at a dinner party. We didn’t go to restaurants but my parents entertained and we visited other families. Ordinary family meals were taken at a table and appropriate manners were demanded: No talking with full mouth. Close mouth while chewing. It’s fine to scoop peas up with the curved side of a fork. Also fine to eat asparagus with fingers (fingerbowl provided of course). Finally - ask permission to leave the table.
When I married and we had children, we often took them to restaurants. They were not always welcome in those days but our attitude was “If you want our custom…” We had a small folding chair with straps that could be placed on an ordinary chair for those restaurants that didn’t provide high chairs. In France, our then three-year-old son learned how to extract winkles from their shells with a needle stuck in a cork. It kept him amused while we enjoyed our meal (we both dislike winkles anyway).
We also had no inhibitions about asking for an empty plate for the youngest, which we could load from our plates, thus avoiding having to pay for a full meal.
I suspect it wasn’t my first restaurant, but this was the first I remember at four or five years old. There was a department store called Rhodes in downtown Tacoma (WA) that had a restaurant on the top floor. I LOVED the chicken a la king. I still remember it and have off and on unsuccessfully chased that taste my entire life!
The first i remember was a small diner that we used to go to a couple times a year. They had a trunk, like a pirate’s treasure chest, that was full of small, cheap toys that children could choose from, to take home with them. I also remember it was the first place I had Roquefort cheese salad dressing, and ordered it everywhere we ate after that. That would have been when I was 4 or 5, in the late 50’s.
I don’t know how old I was, but I do remember what was probably my first restaurant visit. My older sister brought Mom and I to a Big Boy’s. What I remember is the waitress asking me what kind of dressing I wanted on my salad. I looked at sis like I’d just been asked to solve Euler’s polyhedral formula.
My parents used to drive to Vancouver with the neighbors to have Dim Sum for lunch. I don’t remember that at all. I was probably 3 or 4.
I do remember attending birthday parties at McDonalds and my own birthday party at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and a birthday party at Pizza and Pipes. I remember being excited to go to Burger King when the power was out when the Hood Canal Bridge sank in 1979 - I was 8 at the time. My parents only went to McDonalds so Burger King was an exotic place.
The first time I remember getting room service was about two years earlier. We took the train to Lake Louise and stayed in a hotel. My grandmother ordered a club sandwich which we ate in the room. The trip was to celebrate my grandfather’s retirement, and my grandparents paid for everything.
