Victoria And Albert's..."No Kids Allowed"

Perhaps they could have two branches...one for family and one for adults only!

 

Or they could have a behavior test before they let you make a reservation. Or a pop quiz for the kids on how to act at a nice restaurant.

 

As if in response to my earlier post, I was eating at a restaurant last night with a whole chorus of shrieking kids. The one nearest me had this charming tendency to scream out at regular intervals with a tone that sharply rose in pitch and volume until it was at ear piercing levels, then dropped back down again. I don't know if it was a happy sound or an unhappy one, but I distinctly noticed a complete lack of reaction from the parental units theoretically in charge of the child. And then every so often, as if in response, a kid in the distance would yell out. But that one was far enough away that at least it wasn't painful.

I realized why I hadn't been encountering this lately. I've been eating at more exotic places. Thai, sushi, more Thai, Filipino, Tapas.. the (admittedly few) kids I encounter in those places behave entirely differently. I never really thought about it before, but it's another reason for me to prefer exotic cuisine over chain American eateries.

I know it doesn't work like that in Disney World, though.

 

I would rather eat asian food than american food any day. Dan you're in Naperville there is a good place in that general area called Bach Choy (don't know if I spelled that right.) not exactly sure were it is but it's a Chinese carry out in the naperville bolingbrook area.

 

Dan, there are 12 year old kids who are physically capable and emotionally mature enough to drive a car. But they can't get a license till they're 16. Fair? Darn right it is; there are experiences that should be age restrictive, despite the fact that some kids are capable of experiencing them. Just because a kid may have the maturity to sit through a 2.5 hour $150 meal doesn't mean they are entitled or deserve to do so. Your reasoning essentially boils down to, "But THIS kid is special, he should be allowed to do things that other kids are not." Not so.

I don't see Disney putting a fair, evenly-distributed, simply-defined policy regarding age limitation at a restaurant as being any sort of "lowest common denominator", nor as "punishing" the 5% of kids who might actually be capable of sitting through a meal at V&A. In fact, it's the opposite - Disney has taken the high road and refused to force people who DON'T want to put up with other peoples' children to do so.

There are some places where kids don't belong - some for their own good, and some for the good of adults in those places. Kids should not be allowed participate in adult activities. It doesn't matter that a small percentage of kids might be able to handle those activities; they are still adult activities and kids should not be allowed to participate.

And it's not about kids' rights. It's also about adults' rights. We have them, too, ya know.

 

I agree that there should be places that are adults only. This is one I don't really think matters. Even if a kid is well behaved I don't think that many parents would pay a hundred and fifty bucks for their kids to eat. What I don't like is that the age restriction stops at eleven. The age restriction should go well into the teens. I know many teenager that are above the age restriction that act like they are under the age restriction. Many don't know how to conduct themselves when they are at a place where they need to be respectful, quiet, or just act older.

 

If noise and distruption are the issue, how about this connundrum:

Last trip (in 2005), a group of 15 of us (10 adults, 5 kids) went to the Bier Hall for lunch. Obviously the Bier Hall is a "kid friendly" environment, with an Oompa band playing and people dancing and laughing. That being said, it was still a dining establishment, and a certain measure of decorum is expected in the actual table area, where people are eating. Our kids, all under 10, were behaving fine, and not disturbing anyone nearby in the sparsely crowded room (it was early).

As we all sat down to lunch, and were conversing at the table, an unholy scream arose behind us. An adult, just screaching and moaning as loud as possible. I honesty thought someone had been stabbed or severed their hand. We turned around, and seated at a nearby table were three people: An older couple, and man who looked to be about 20 - 25 in a wheelchair. He was obviously severely disabled in some way, though it wasn't clear to me if it was mental, physical or both. In any event, he was displeased about something, and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs. For 25 minutes. While the couple with him tried to finish their meal, a look of complete misery and exhaustion on their faces.

What's the appropriate policy for that situation ?

I felt terrible for that family, who was clearly trying to get away and enjoy an experience. Obviously the man in the wheelchair had no control or no capacity to understand or respect certian basic etiquettes. I felt guilty being annoyed at the circumstance, but for 15 of us, our meals were literally ruined. We anticipated a fun, family meal, and we literally couldn't hear each other across a table. We ate quickly and left, basically wasting about $300 on a meal none of us enjoyed.

It seems to me that at the very least, the management should have appreciated the circumstances, and if they weren't going to do something about the family with the screeching man, they could have at least offered some kind of discount to the other 30 - 50 diners who were there at the time, who were unable to enjoy their meal.

That was a difficult moral dilemma, and I still wonder how it could best be handled. I felt bad about the family's situation, but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed. I hate to draw the analogy, but if my 2 year old starts screaming in a restaurant (which has happened at least once), I'll walk out without a second thought before I'll let him ruin anyone elses meal.

What say you all ?

 

That is both a bad experience and a bad situation. I would be really annoyed but also feel bad about being really annoyed as you said. I believe there should have been something for you all like a discount or even a free meal. It seems more of a touchy situation because you're dealing with something that they can't really help, I mean they could have given thought to their surroundings but it's a bit different.

 

If an adult in V&As were to act disruptively he or she would be asked to leave. I'm only saying that I think the same should apply to children. Individual rather than group responsibility. Yes, it'd mean the parents having to leave too.. but still that's my thinking on the matter.

Regarding the concept of disabled people and their behavior.. yeah, that's a complicated issue. I want to say that I think the family should have taken the screaming man out of the restaurant.. but I'm far less certain on the validity of this position. I have no well established concept of ethics regarding it because I can't understand what's going on in the mind of such people. If I don't understand how they perceive the world I don't know how it's fair to treat them. It's simpler to accept the situation but be privately annoyed by it. I'm not saying the annoyance is exactly.. er, right, but that's my response.

I'll check out Bok Choy. I think I found it on Google. It has some steep competition from other local places, but a brief look at their online menu is impressive.

Thank you for bringing it up, actually, I'm excited at the prospect of having a new place to check out.

 

You know what, I'm going to waffle a bit here. If I look at it from the perspective of it being unfair to expect kids to sit through the entire meal I can kind of see it making sense. Like I said, *I* am not entirely keen on the idea of a long formal meal, but nobody is forcing me to go either. The truth is I'd probably enjoy it, but my tendency is to avoid such situations and what with the hefty price tag associated with it I'm just not feeling all that bad about doing so.

The problem with the "just kick out the noisy kids" policy is that it'd probably mean the parents of those children losing hundreds of dollars on the aborted meal. While I have this nasty desire to punish parents for taking their noisy kids places that they don't belong, I'm not sure that would be fair. My thinking process is proceeding to a weird idea of requiring some sort of test to prove that they can behave, but.. yeah, that's absurd, I know it.

On my first cruise ever, the cruise portion of Mousefest last year, I ate at their fancier Italian place, Palo. It's an interesting thing, it's not a part of the regular dining rotation, it costs extra, but not that much. A recent check on Disney's site says it's $16, but I thought it was even less than that. But it's a long, elegant meal with multiple courses, and the finest food to be had not only aboard the ship but also among the best in Disney World as well. I'm not a huge Italian food fan, the only thing I had that I'd rave about was the gnochi. But a lot of the food was still very good, as were their cocktails (Chambord mojito martini, fantastic!), and I was kind of enjoying the whole quiet elegance thing. It's also a no kids allowed place. But it's kind of different there. A lot of the ship is divided up into kids or adults only areas. They have a kids only pool, and an adults only pool. And an everybody pool, actually. AND a crew pool.. they have a lot of pools.