Babies in restaurants : what’s really going on and how to go about it.

I recently got a private message on Instagram from a dad who wanted to let me know he had felt unwelcomed when popping in for lunch accompanied by his 7 months old. I thought it’d be a good idea to share with you guys my perspectives on the subject, both from a restaurateur point of view but also from one of a new dad.

Let’s be honest : restaurants don’t like babies, toddlers, infants. They just don’t. And even if the owner is baby friendly, most FOH (front of house) aren’t. They are messy, noisy, sticky, clumsy, disruptive miniature trainwrecks. If you work in our industry don’t tell me you don’t cringe a little, go “fuck-fuck-fuck” in your head when you see a charming couple with a pair of adorable kids pushing the doors of the restaurant you’re working at. I just won’t believe you. And this doesn’t mean you don’t like babies, maybe you’re even a parent yourself, those are two totally unrelated things. It just means that you’re a seasonned professional and that you know, deep down, that one way or the other shit is about to hit the fan.

Before the parents reading this run for the torches and pitchforks, I’d like you to know I’m the proud father of a beautiful (assessed from multiple sources) seven months old boy going by the name of Louis. I’m crazy about him ; even when he commits the most smelly, disgusting acts a person his age is prone to commit, I see rainbows and flowers. I’m a dad all the way, and still, I experience profound fear when welcoming young kids to the restaurant, because I know my table, chairs, plants, salt and pepper shakers, menus, napkins, bathrooms, customers sitting in direct proximity are about to be the objects of various kinds of abuse.

The blame here, from my perspective, falls entirely on the parents, not the child. It’s a bold statement that I’ll try to explain. Young kids are, by definition, ill-equipped to navigate, to function, within the restaurant perimeter : still unaware of basic rules of social cohabitation (noise level, occupation of/intrusion in others’ personal space), poor motor skills yet to be developed (knocking things off the table, spilling water glasses or worse : hot beverages), short attention span (getting bored/tired very quickly at the table), easily scared and threatened by new faces, loud music, sharp noises (sounds from the kitchen, people talking loudly) and so forth.

While I understand the necessity of, and even encourage young parents to expose their baby to this kind of environment to help its good development, I believe the parents’ role and behavior are crucial. Parents are the liaison, the link, the assistant that should be here to protect, help, assist, prevent, facilitate their babies interactions with the restaurant environment that is still very foreign and uncompatible with their skillset. Basically it should be a team effort, is all I’m trying to say.

Unfortunately, and understandably, some parents nostalgic of simpler days (who can blame them?) are trying to get through a meal at the restaurant with their children acting as if their children weren’t there at all. Suddenly victims of total sight and ear loss, the parents decide to munch forward totally oblivious to the shitstorm spinning at high velocity around their table, causing all sorts of physical damage, powered by their little angels. I’ve seen it first hand, at our restaurant and others’, on multiple occasions : parents building a protective, selfish and invisble bubble within which they’ll leisurely enjoy brunch, lunch, dinner, conveniently unable to see nor ear the screams, tears, demolition caused by their children. It’s quite amazing to watch really. I pin it as a self-defense mechanism, but it’s not okay.

The result of such behaviour will undoubtedly be assassin glances from nearby customers (who had been looking forward, and probably saving for a nice meal together) and regretfully, passive-aggressiveness from your waiter/waitress who by this point would love nothing more but to escort you and yours out, yet can’t, because it just isn’t done. To cope with the growing fire of anger building inside them, they’ll vent to their colleagues at the bar everytime they run a drink and will come back to your table, each time a bit more pissed, until you finally feel it oozing out of their pores and leave, outraged and offended, collecting your kids’ scattered toys in one hand and opening the Yelp app on your phone in the other.

You love your kids but you miss your life from before, I get it. Sarah and I used to dine out 4, 5, sometimes 6 times a week before we had Louis. We love eating out, we love food (duh), we love restaurants, we feel good in them and it’s also the rare occasion we have to see our just as hard working friends from the other side of the bar/pass. During the pregnancy you tell yourself, and each other, that it won’t change a thing, that babies sleep most of the time anyway so you’ll be able to enjoy dinner outside just as often. It doesn’t have to change. Well, spoiler alert, it doesn’t have to but it does nonetheless and by refusing to accept it, by locking yourself in a pattern of denial while eating out with your children, pretending that everything is poo-petty-doo-okay, while your daughter just spilled the entire content of the sugar shaker and is now proceeding in raking it neatly all across the table like some sort of minature DIY zen garden, is the best way to add to young-parents-in-restaurants already not-so-hot reputation, making sure that the very next happy family venturing in for a plate of chow will get a death stare from FOH even if they’re about to do everything right (because you can do everything right, tips and tricks a little further down).

In simpler words, when you walk into a restaurant with baby for the first time and the hostess welcomes you with a fifty percent smile, a blend of fear and judgement in her eyes, it’s not because of you, she doesn’t even know you, it’s not because of your baby that she doesn’t even know either and probably has zero problem with, it’s because of all of the other parents before you who have misbehaved in every possible way, being rude to her, making her service hell by wrongly assuming that the restaurant was an extension of their living room. You were presented with the tab, my friend, of all the fenced-in-an-imaginery-bubble-parents the second you walked in and even before you opened your mouth. Deeply unfair and yet, it’s just the way it is. It happens to Sarah and I all the time, from great waiters, friends even, they just got burnt too many times before. Instead of taking it as a personal offense and engaging directly in a tensed interaction with the floor staff signing up for what will quite surely become a terrible dining experience, take it as an opportunity to prove them wrong, to prove them that not all parents are made equal (in a restaurant setting at least) and that shit does not necessarily have to hit the fan because you’re about to enjoy a meal with a small human on your lap.

Here are a few pointers on how to go about it from a former FOH turned restaurant owner :

Situation n°1 : Oops, your child just knocked off a glass of water, getting himself, the menus and the napkins wet. Worst thing you can do is pretend like nothing happened and carry on or, even worse yet, throw your hand in the air and summon a waiter over (never wave a waiter over, it’s bad) and demand that they clean up the mess. They will probably do it, but secretly hate you for it and make you feel it until the very last bite of dessert. Instead, apologize, even if you feel like you don’t have to because it was an accident and your child didn’t do it on purpose, apologize anyway ; it will go a long way, automatically ensuring you a spot in the nice-parents-category, your waiter/waitress will appreciate it and will treat you accordingly. Ask for a cloth and tell your waiter, even if you have no actual intention of doing it, that you will mop up the mess. No good waiter/waitress will let you do the cleaning but they’ll appreciate the offer and your understanding attitude. In the end you’ll have a dry, clean table just as if you summoned the waiter and told him to do it (as I’ve seen it done many many times before) but you’ll be on FOH good side (news travel fast in a restaurant) and everybody will love you.

Situation n°2 : Your baby is hungry/tired/upset or just being a baby and started crying at the top of his/her lungs making everybody in a 50 meters radius plug their ears with their pinky to protect already bleeding eardrums. Babies cry, that’s what they do. I know it, you know it, and restaurant staff knows it too. They’re not crying for the sole purpose of ruining our lives (and perfectly cooked poached eggs) it’s just the one and only way they have to let us know something isn’t going the way it should. That’s oh so fine. Worst thing you can do is simply seat there, screaming baby in your arms or in the stroller, lazily rocking it side to side, hoping it goes away. It never does. Good restaurant etiquette would be considered addressing the cries right away. Look at the waitstaff in a restaurant when a baby starts crying, they will all take a quick second to lock eyes with one another, silently telling each other “ooooh, fuck, here we go now”. If your baby starts crying and you promptly pick it up, feed it, reassure it, cuddle it, do wathever it is he/she is asking you to do, preferably taking a few steps away from the dining room or even better yet, stepping outside until the crying stops, you will be welcomed back as a war hero, floor manager pulling your chair for you, patting you on the shoulder with a teary eye as you sit down, patrons two tables over giving you the thumbs up and buying you a round. It’s not so much the fact that your baby stops crying or not, it’s the fact that you actively did something about it. It shows common sense, respect and assures you unlimited love by staff and other customers alike.

Situation n°3 : Your kid broke something. Apologize (yes, it was an accident but apologize, you just have to) and offer to pay for it even if no good restaurant will actually take your money for it. The simple fact that you acknowledged the breakage and are willing to compensate for the broken item is plenty.

As you might have gathered by now, a good rule of thumb is to be respectful of the restaurant and its staff. An attitude of entitlement “I’m a paying customer, my kid can do whatever he/she wants” will almost always result in tension and bitter feelings on both sides whereas, “I really wanted to come eat your food as a family but my daugther accidentally dropped the salt shaker in her water glass, i’m so sorry!” will get you a long way with the staff, and therefore, improve your dinning experience.

To conclude I’ll say this. The moment you made the decision to turn this lazy sunday nap into the manufacturing of a human being, your life has changed, whether you like it or not, for the best and forever. It’s only been 7 months for me so I can only speak of so much, I’m sure Louis (in spite of having spent most of his brand new beautiful and innocent life within the confinement of a restaurant) will grow out to become an even more destructive little tornado, he’ll be no exception. It is I, and I only, that can change FOH preconception of babies in restaurants. If you get “the look” the minute you step in with baby on your shoulders don’t ask to speak to the manager right away, understand that it’s not you personally that they see but the ghost of many, many, many unattended children with sticky fingers, fast legs, wet cheeks and a high capacity for destruction. It doesn’t have to be that way, you just have to be consistent with the life choices you made, it’s never too late to change and it starts with us, the new parents.

Nicolas Alary is the co-owner of Holybelly in Paris.