Donner, Party of Five

Ever find yourself in a crowd, and no one has anything to talk about except the weather? There are SO many conversation starters out there, but if you really want to get things heated in a hurry, just throw this out:

"Do you think restaurants should ban children of certain ages?"

I'm not stupid so I am not going to offer the slightest hint of a scintilla of an opinion on this.  

But it comes to mind after I saw a Washington POST story about a restaurant down in North Carolina that has set up a rule: no one under 5 years of age can tie on the feedbag there.

It's a nice Italian place called Caruso's, and one night everyone was trying to enjoy their Paparazzi Grazie Tante while little Cindy Lou was playing on her iPad with the volume maxed out. Staffers asked them to cool it, and the parents said no.

"Finally, we had to ask them to leave," the restaurant manager, Yoshi Nunez, told the Post. "They were upset, but they didn’t seem to care about what the other guests thought. We tried to be nice about the situation, but we’re here to take care of customers and we can’t tell a parent how to control their kids."

Finocchiona

The very definition of being considerate in public means taking the comfort of others to heart, so to hear that people don't give a flying finocchiona about you being able to eat without hearing The Wiggles boggles most minds.

Caruso's responded by telling people under 5 that they don't have to eat at home, but they cannot eat at Caruso's.

And since the ban went into effect, Caruso's has seen their dinner crowd go up from about 50 per night to about 80.

And up in the DC suburbs, there is a sushi bar called Sushi Bar in Alexandria which does not allow anyone under the age of 18 to dine on plates of datsun or, as it's now known, nissan. 

"We thought parents just needed a place to give it a break, like an adult clubhouse," Sushi Bar owner Mike Anderson told the Post.

And a Mexican restaurant in Houston will seat children, but they give their parents cards with instructions detailing what sort of behaviors will and will not be allowed. They started doing this after someone's little Sunny Jim caused $1,500 worth of damage to the walls of the Cuchara restaurant, scratching up the paneling with a quarter.

Again, I am not about to say I agree with this or not. I do think that most of the rude, obnoxious behavior that has revolted me in restaurants all over is perpetrated by people much older than 5, though.

So how about, let's all behave when we go out to eat, and act like we've been out to eat before, whaddya say?