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A Texas restaurant is playing with fire, introducing "rule cards" for parents coming in with their children.
The passive-aggressive, illustrated postcards read, "Children at Cuchara don't run or wander around the restaurant. They stay seated and ask their parents to take them to the restroom. They don't scream, throw tantrums or touch the walls, murals, windows or anything of the other patrons. They are respectful!"
Waiters at Cuchara, a Mexican restaurant in Houston, place them on the table along with the menu as a not-so-subtle hint for families. The move came after one kid scratched up the walls with a quarter, doing $1,500 worth of damage.
"We're a Mexican city bistro. Children are in a grown-up environment. It's not a playground atmosphere. Other people come in for a nice dinner," one of the unapologetic co-owners told Yahoo.com.
According to staff, 80 per cent of the reaction has been favourable. (The Yelp reviews are in and they're positive: "Amazing food, wonderful service and love that they hold parents accountable for kids behavior. I will now come more often," wrote one reviewer.)
But that leaves 20 per cent of patrons with mixed feelings, possibly alienated. So how does a restaurant welcome families while at the same time setting reasonable standards? It's a tricky balance and an issue that cuts both ways.
When we were in our childless 20s, my friends and I used to bemoan people carting in their kids to our favourite restaurants. "Why are you here?" our eyes said, shooting daggers. How were we to recount our all-night benders while a toddler hung over the booth, handing us a crayon?
Then my best friend had a baby and it dawned on us: You pretty much have to take babies everywhere, and occasionally, yes, you want to participate in society. How to do it right, so you don't feel like a leper?
The answer, it seems, is being attuned to your surroundings and not inconveniencing others with your brood. While it may very well be some moms' and dads' first night out in months, when they enjoy adult conversation as their kids clamber under others' tables, or stumble around underfoot as waiters carry cast-iron pans of scorching fajitas, parents treat the public as their free babysitter. (In this department, another friend of mine was notorious, letting her son bound along the banquettes in his snow boots at an expensive restaurant in Toronto. "The community raises the child," she'd say in a sing-songy voice. Nuh-uh.)
"We cannot babysit a child," another Cuchara owner told KHOU. "We're busy serving and cleaning and moving around."
Still, the restaurant's rule cards are mild fare compared to other restaurants now barring children outright. One in Cape Breton banned "small screaming children," then quickly retracted amid a backlash. A California restaurant banned babies "making loud noises" and stopped offering high chairs and booster seats, also ixnaying strollers.
Over in Maine, a restaurant owner got embroiled in a parenting storm when she told a wailing toddler, "This needs to stop." The parents were horrified, claiming it was only 10 minutes of incessant crying. "Ten minutes of toddler screaming is an eternity of frustration for people forced to listen," wrote The Globe's Dave McGinn, arguing that two minutes is the acceptable time-frame for a tantrum to run its course. Beyond that, you're going outside: "It's a restaurant, not my house," McGinn pointed out.
The failure in each case is not kids, but parents – parents who need Parenting 101s doled out by harried restaurateurs. Back in the eighties when my brother and I were fine-dining babies, one stern look from Dad would have sufficed.
Zosia Bielski