Restaurants are a dangerous place for children. They are full of slick surfaces, sharp edges, and frazzled servers darting about carrying heavy armloads of scalding hot food. If your little bundle of joy refuses to remain seated and scurries in front of me while I am balancing three heavy ceramic plates of food, it could spell disaster.
If I have to stop and wait for the child to move out of my way, I will be forced to endure first degree burns on my fingers to prevent myself from pitching forward and covering you, your child, and the rest of your family in someone else's dinner. You're welcome.
In addition to being so hyper that they cannot sit still, children nowadays often have trouble keeping quiet. If you haven't yet noticed, restaurants are places people go to enjoy a lovely meal in a peaceful atmosphere. Most customers' idea of ambiance is not listening to your child's high-pitched squeals and screams, nor your constant and increasingly frustrated pleading for him or her to just shut up already.
I recently was working a very slow Monday night shift at a tiny Italian restaurant. A woman I have waited on before came in with her horribly behaved baby and her boyfriend shortly before closing. This was only my second or third table of the night, so I was beyond disgusted and ready to go home.
It was pasta night, which means $9.99 for unlimited pasta. She and her boyfriend ordered their first dishes of pasta after making several fussy demands, and ate them quickly. They then ordered second helpings.
It was nearing ten o'clock, closing time and later than I usually stay, especially on a Monday evening. Her toddler was squirming in his high chair, screaming at the top of his lungs. Exhausted and losing patience, I went to sit in the pizzeria in the front of the restaurant. I heard a crash.
The child had thrown a glass to the floor and it had shattered everywhere. I fetched a broom and dustpan and began sweeping up the broken glass, as the mother's boyfriend chastised her for being an awful mother and not disciplining the "f-ing brat" effectively. Normally I would be appalled at a customer speaking to his girlfriend in front of me in that manner, but in this circumstance I silently cheered him on.
I cleared away the plates from their second course soon after and dropped their check. I thought that after what had happened they would be embarrassed, or at least empathetic, and pay their bill and leave. Instead, they made themselves at home. It was after ten, and the cashier had to go to their table and request that they pay because they had to close the register. They paid and continued to sit, the boyfriend leaned back comfortably in his seat sipping a beer, and the wild child out of his high chair and rolling around on the floor.
I asked my manager to please clean the table once they left so I could go home, collected my four dollar tip and left. I wish I could have asked them on what planet they thought it was acceptable to behave this way in a restaurant where they spent only $20, tipped me a measly $4, destroyed property and destroyed the peace.
I know children are a product of their environment, and if you cannot control them, leave them at home. It is not the obligation of your server to clean up after your child when it hurls a glass across the dining room or rips its food to shreds and sprinkles it all over the floor.
I have enough on my mind during a busy dinner shift- I shouldnt have to worry about stepping on swarms of young children or spilling hot soup on their heads. They are your children and your responsibility. Keep them seated or keep them at home.
Most of all, no staff or patrons should have to listen to your ill-behaved spawn have a temper tantrum. Stop eating, get up and take the child outside.
What's that? You don't want your meal ruined? Neither does anyone else.
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