I pit screaming kids in a restaurant and asshole parents and spineless managers

The BBQ Pit
1

Last night, I took my mother out to dinner. She’s 94 and we really enjoy these outings because we all realize there might not be one next weekend. She loves an Italian place near her home; we go there on a regular basis and she wanted to go there last night.

Family From Hell ™, complete with Hellspawn, is there. The kid is about a year and a half old or so, and has discovered that he has lungs and vocal cords. And he’s using them just for the sheer joy of screaming. Every time he does, the parents do this “nanny-nanny-boo-boo don’t do that any more” shit with him and the kid eats it up because they are paying attention to him and he doesn’t perceive it as punishment.

After about 10 minutes, I call the waitress over and ask if we can relocate. Place is full to the gills. I then ask her to go over and ask the Family From Hell to quiet Hellspawn down. She hems and haws and gets the manager. I ask her the same thing. She and the waitress walk off and a few minutes later, the manager goes over and speaks to the table. Response from dad was profanity, to the effect that the effin’ kid is just being a effin’ kid and that’s what effin’ kids do.

Had I been the manager, I would have asked them to leave the restaurant at that point. Instead, she comes back over and tells us, in effect, that there is nothing she can do and we will just have to put up with it!!! My response was basically “You’re kidding me, right?” When she said no, I said “Thank you for your effort, but we are leaving now. And we won’t be back.”

Now, Mom doesn’t manuver all that well. She has to use a walker and she’s damn near blind. But she almost popped a wheelie on the walker getting away from the table. To top things off, the manager had the gall to come out to the lobby waving our check and telling me that I needed to pay it. I took great delight in telling her loudly, in front of the customers waiting to be seated, that I had no intention of paying it after the sorry service we had been given and that if she wanted it paid, she could give it to the Family From Hell, because they were the ones responsible for our leaving and never coming back.

Aaaarrrgghhhh. These parents were breathing proof that people should have to take a test and pass it prior to squeezing out a podling and inflicting it on the world. And the restaurant chain Powers-That-Be will most assuredly hear of their manager’s lack of a spine or a brain.

Aaaarghhh. It bears repeating. :mad: :mad: :mad:

2

The fucking kid was being a fucking kid and that’s what fucking kids do.

3

Now that all restaurants are going non-smoking, I can’t wait for restaurants to have “Kids” and “Non-kids” sections. Yeah, kids are kids, and that’s what kids do, but not all of us enjoy listening to other people’s children. That said, I wouldn’t go as far as clothahump did, but I sympathize with the sentiment behind it. When my husband and I want to go out for a nice, quiet, adult dinner*, we don’t appreciate other people’s screaming kids either.
*We have no problem with screaming kids at McDonalds, etc. - we expect them there. When we go to an expensive steakhouse, however, we expect a pleasant atmosphere that doesn’t include screaming.

4

When I worked retail and had to put up with screaming, running kids, I always consoled by remembering that my contact with them would be short, while their parents were stuck with them permanently.

Has anyone ever seen a manager with enough balls to tell a loud family or a loud group to leave a restaurant? None of the managers I’ve known would dare to do it, for fear of pissing off a customer who would then go on to bitch to other potential customer.

5

Good for you, Clothahump. Except you should have gone one further and stopped by Family From Hell’s ™ table on the way out and given them a piece of your mind!

6

I forgot to mention-I’m sorry your mother’s evening didn’t go well, Clothahump and I hope you were able to have another nice night out to make up for it.

7

No one’s blaming the fucking kid. It’s the fucking moron parents. Get a fucking babysitter rather than ruin other people’s fucking meals, fuckers! Your fucking kid ain’t my fucking problem, and that’s the way it fucking is. If I wanted to hear screaming fucking kids, I’d pop out a few of my own… and then leave them with a fucking babysitter when I went the fuck out to dinner!

Wow, that was cathartic. :smiley:

Bottom line: be considerate. If your kid is causing a ruckus, take him outside until he calms down. Your kid = your problem. Don’t make it everyone in the restaurant’s problem. It’s not really the kid’s fault; at that age, they have no conception of public behavior. It’s the parents who are jerks.

8

You left without paying? Did you eat your whole meal or were you still waiting for it? I agree it’s annoying to have clueless parents in a restaurant but a manager is not going to kick out every family with a crying child. I would be pissed at the parents too but I wouldn’t stiff the manager and the waitress over it. I think you are right to never return if you don’t like their policy on children but you should have paid for what you ate.

9

Some restaurants where I live do this informally. I call it the “baby gulag” because it tends to be in a section that’s well away from the busiest part of the restaurant.

I do agree that kids need to be contained and kept busy. What works for me is to put my son’s booster seat closest to the wall, to bring toys and books to keep him busy, and to ask for his food and beverage to come out with the salads or appetizer so he’s not waiting for Daddy’s steak and Mommy’s chicken when it’s been a while since he’s eaten anything at all.

Robin

10

You should have dropped by their table and told them to apply for one of those super nanny show as they are unable to control their child.

11

Years ago, bus wife, the kid, and I were out with my sister and her (at the time) 2 kids. The youngest, we’ll call him Satanic Spawn for the sake of anonymity, was running from table to table, with snots dripping from his nose, laughing and smiling with people that clearly didn’t want to be bothered. My sister thought it was cute. I told her otherwise, and she decided I hated her son.

Couple of years after that, we’re all on a family trip in Disney World (note to self: don’t do that again). At Epcot, there’s a the nice chinese restaurant. We’re waiting for a table, in the waiting area, which is packed to the gills. Little SS decides to plop down right there in the middle of the floor and have a fit.

I picked him up and was again chastised for being mean to the little shit.

When Bus kid was a child, we constantly recieved compliments on her behavior at restaurants. Quiet, well behaved, not messy and never left her seat for bullshit walking around.

Is there an owner, someone up the line from the manager you could have talked to?

12

I disagree. If you pay and leave, then they forget you were ever there. If you walk out on your bill, the manager has to explain to the owner why that happened, which might result in a change or two.

13

I can’t believe you didn’t pay your bill. Unless it was just for drinks that you weren’t there long enough to drink, that was wrong.

14

Yeah, sounds like it’s the effin’ parents’ issue.

I’ve never had a bad experience in a restaurant with kids, not because I’ve never heard a kid scream or whine, but because when they do the parents always seem to deal with it in an appropriate and timely manner.

Clearly, if the dad started swearing at the waitstaff (who, I assume were at least moderately friendly to him) in the middle of the restaurant, then that guy needs a swift kick in the ass.

We live in a society, people!!!

As far as paying, I’m torn. I myself would have paid, but that’s just me. A store manager’s supposed to be able to deal with jerkish customers, and if I had a store and a customer started using profanity with me, he or she’d be out of there right quick.

15

So take your fucking kids to fucking McDonald’s or get a fucking babysitter. No one going out to dinner wants to hear that fucking shit.

16

Yep, I have. Red Lobster in Bowling Green, KY. My wife and I were waiting for our food, while a family of about 10 walks to their table. The father is cursing loudly, and the kids are crying. He then gets on his cellphone and start yelling at the person on the phone. We complained to the manager, he went over and warned them. Guy kept on doing it, manager asked them to leave. When they acted like they weren’t going to, manager threatened to call the police. That’s when they left.

Everyone was very impressed with that manager.

17

No they don’t. That’s what effin’ brats do whose parents are clueless and classless.

18

Provided they hadn’t finished their meal yet, I disagree.

I don’t go to a restaurant just to buy food, I go to a restaurant to buy food and have it served to me in a comfortable setting. Obviously, there’s a lot of variety in what constitutes a “comfortable setting,” but unless he was taking his grandma to a sports bar or a Chuck E Cheese’s it’s reasonable to expect that the restaurant is gonna be free from screaming people of any age. If someone’s causing a disruption so severe that I can’t enjoy my meal and want to leave, and the manager refuses to deal with the problem, then the restaurant isn’t living up to their end of the deal and I don’t feel obligated to live up to mine.

19

I wouldn’t have blamed the waitress in this case-it sounds like she wanted to do something, but couldn’t because spineless manager probably would’ve fired her.

It’s one thing when little kids scream-when I was working retail, and I’d hear them, I’d smile and say, “Yeah, I feel like that when I’m in here too.” It’s another when a parent just laughs and encourages it. You calm the kid down, take him outside, hold him, or if need be, you leave.

20

I used to own a game store. the time I told some lady who was 95% bad attitude and looking to buy 2$ worth of goods to get the fuck out got cheers from the regulars…I really hate the way society treats people who seem to exist soley to make others miserable. there is no reason one person (or mom/dad/hellspawn) should ever be allowed to make dozens of people miserable out of sheer inconsideration.