NYT on family friendly bars

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I’m all for family friendly drinking establishments:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/a-child-friendly-beer-garden-doesnt-seem-so-friendly-to-some/?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnyregion%2Findex.jsonp

We have two kids. They’ve been everywhere from Russian River to the local breweries. Sometimes, you not only cannot get away and spend a day in a brewpub, you don’t want to either. And families spend money when they visit. I’d like to see more family oriented craft spots.

I don’t have kids (yet) but I kind of like a place that’s more welcoming of families. At least they don’t get drunk, loud and act like assholes. I can see it getting excessive if there are nothing but toddlers running around, but one of the ways you teach kids about how to behave in public is actually letting them be around in public.

At Petaluma Taps, there was a kids menu. I’m pretty sure we got one at Falling Rock (or there was no problem making a kids version of the food). At Great Dane, they gave my daughter a balloon. High chairs at Revolution. Crayons and pics to color at Schlafly. It just makes sense.

What I like to see is a restaurant area that is kid friendly and a bar area that is adults only. I don’t mind seeing kids around when I go out, but I’m usually out with people who left their kids home with babysitters so they could enjoy a night out with adults. Hearing screaming kids and seeing kids running around the establishment we go to makes for a bad night for them. There should be places that are kid friendly, but not every place should be kid friendly.

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee
I don’t have kids (yet) but I kind of like a place that’s more welcoming of families. At least they don’t get drunk, loud and act like assholes. I can see it getting excessive if there are nothing but toddlers running around, but one of the ways you teach kids about how to behave in public is actually letting them be around in public.

The problem is a lot of parents that go to kid friendly places let their kids run wild.

Originally posted by Cletus

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee
I don’t have kids (yet) but I kind of like a place that’s more welcoming of families. At least they don’t get drunk, loud and act like assholes. I can see it getting excessive if there are nothing but toddlers running around, but one of the ways you teach kids about how to behave in public is actually letting them be around in public.

The problem is a lot of parents that go to kid friendly places let their kids run wild.

Yes - this is exactly the problem. I get that it’s hard to make kids behave all the time, but the story mentions a kid on a tricycle in the beer garden - WTF? It’s not a playground. I don’t think kids should be completely walled off from adult behaviour, but adults shouldn’t have to participate in babysitting other people’s kids either.

We are decidedly not kid friendly. We’re not hostile to the thought of kids being in our stores/restaurants but we don’t have kids menus, high chairs, balloons or anything like that. We can and will make changes to the dishes on the menu for kids if requested.

The reason for this is I feel like there’s really no place you can go anymore to get away from your kids. Parents either don’t know what is and isn’t a good place to take kids or their too damn cheap to hire a sitter. At the Oregon Brewers Festival every year there’s some moron trying to push a stroller through a crowded beer tent. You don’t take an infant to a movie, sporting event or beer festival people.

We set out to be the one place that wasn’t a bar but was still a place you could go to get away from your’s and other people’s children. We still get plenty of parents who bring their kids in and we’re always happy to see them but when asked if we’ll be getting high chairs we politely explain that we won’t. We still see them a couple times a week.

Different places for different people. But for those of us who want a place to go in the afternoon or early dinner hour (5pm), don’t want to leave our kids behind, don’t want to tack on another $50 to the day for a sitter, and want to have a beer, it’s nice to have the options as well. We also buy a lot of food, and margins on food are higher than on beer.

Originally posted by drfabulous
Different places for different people. But for those of us who want a place to go in the afternoon or early dinner hour (5pm), don’t want to leave our kids behind, don’t want to tack on another $50 to the day for a sitter, and want to have a beer, it’s nice to have the options as well. We also buy a lot of food, and margins on food are higher than on beer.

Not when the kids are running around the beer garden like it sounds like they’re doing at the place quoted in the article. Adults with beers are not looking out for 2 foot tall kids with no sense of space and no supervision when making their way to the table. I totally get the whole idea of bringing your kids to a place to have some beer as long as they are supervised and not allowed to "frollic" about in the eating area as one of the parents is quoted as saying.

Kid friendly definitely played a big role in where we stopped on our road trip from Florida to Alaska in April. In general it worked out, but I did miss out on some smaller brewpubs because unlike the chain ones its hard to take children in them, if at all. As for the way children act in public, trust me I will leave if my kids act up because I respect beer and other patrons!

I think its fair to mention that when you have parents with children that are obnoxious or rowdy its very difficult for the owner or staff to ask the parents to intervene. When someone does ask that parents reign in their kids the response is usually something along the lines of "don’t tell me how to raise my children!" No one wants to have a confrontation when they go out.