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I've never brought my LO's to a fancy restaurant. Casual restaurants, yes but if either of them acts up, we leave.

I'm all for a baby ban at a really nice place...I would only be disappointed if casual restaurants started to do the same.

@Modern Daisy: I agree. Sometimes it isn't even just a screaming kid. In a super fancy romantic restaurant the atmosphere kind of suffers if there are high chairs and crayons.

Once I went out with some friends and their kids- four kids under 4 and as soon as we were seated a couple in a booth asked to be reseated. The baby in the group was the most quiet. The tots were making all the mess and noise. Even at family friendly places like TG I Fridays (where we were) people want a pleasant experience.

At a super fancy spot with intimate seating there is probably a greater need for every table to help set the mood and maintain ambiance. I don't think banning children is a horrible idea since people have plenty of other choices to dine.

I probably would t take LO to a place like that, but I feel I deserve the right to take my LO wherever I choose. I would Def take her outside if she was having a tantrum though.

Or maybe more restaurants could have a 'family' seating section? I used to go to a nice place, (not TGIF casual, but not as fancy as Alinea, 40ish dollar plates) and they had a whole separate room closed off by french doors that they used as their function room or family dining area.

@plantains: Another new yorker here who takes her baby out to all kinds of seemingly inappropriate (i.e. nice) places, both in NY and abroad (where we are living temporarily) and when we are traveling. She doesn't stay out past bedtime, but brunch, lunch, and early dinner are pretty fun with her. And she's never once melted down. If she did, I'd definitely step out to calm her down after a minute. So yeah, it sounds different from the infamous Alinea fiasco, but a full-on baby ban seems redonk to me.

A ban on bankers out with the boys, however, sounds AMAZING. Especially if they are talking loudly about the proportions of the ladies they are meeting up with later. G-ross.

I have brought my LO to lots of high end restaurants when she was an infant and would be asleep the whole time. The first time she went to one she was 3 days old. Now that she's loud and bangy on the table and tries to pull dishes off the table, I would never bring her anywhere other than a place that was super loud. I think an 8 month old is way too loud for a quiet dining place that caters to adults, regardless of price. I also take her out to calm down if she cries anywhere that is quiet - church, restaurants, etc.

Even if the parent leaps up and takes their crying child outside at the first sign of a tantrum, the other diners will still be subjected to 30 seconds to a minute of screaming which, if I'm paying £250 to eat at a fancy place, would be completely unacceptable to me. I support ban in super high end restaurants.

@Foodnerd81: If you had a restaurant with a waiting list and were charging £250 per head plus wine, would you want to offer a refund to a couple because they had chosen to come with a baby and that baby wasn't allowing them to enjoy their meal on this occasion?? With a waiting list, it's unlikely that potential diners will come in off the street int he hope of getting a table so that would be at least £500 revenue lost.

I think if I was a fancy restaurant owner/manager, I would much prefer to have a blanket ban on children that to have to approach a couple who's baby is freaking out and ask them to please take the baby outside!! It's one thing if the parents are ignoring him/her (they deserve to be put in their place) but if the parents are trying to console him/her and the baby is freaking out, I'd feel awful adding to their problems and embarrassing them in front of the other diners. And what do you do if the baby is giggling loudly and shrieking with delight?? Could you ask someone to please stop their baby being happy because it is ruining the ambiance?!! It's a toughie!

@mjane: seriously. I took her to lunch at STK in Midtown and the couple sat next to us were so blindingly drunk it was insane. The dude was groping the lady like it was a nightclub or something. I don't need to see anybody's boobies while trying to eat my salad. Ban them before you ban babies hahaha.

@nana87: I love that mini teddy bear idea. I might have to steal that. A little toy that she only gets when we eat out sounds so cool.

@BKCaribBaby: there really isn't! For me, flights are the hugest issue of all. When I am flying business class and your kid is leaning over and kicking my seat while I am trying to sleep, that pisses me off. But there are no calls to ban babies from flying. Oh well. Seriously though, a lot of parents get upset with me for asking their 5 year old to please stop kicking my seat. Madness I tell you, madness.

@nana87: you might be on to something. So many nice restaurants are really noisy and also very dark. Because they are so dark, you often don't realise that there are kids there until they get up to leave. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Common sense would tell me not to take a kid to such a restaurant. I get that some parents will take their kid out when they start to throw a tantrum, but that brings its own annoyances, the walking in and out and the yelling as they are taken out. High end restaurants just aren't good places for kids, they don't enjoy it and the other patrons don't enjoy them either.
I get what some of the PP's are saying about adults behaving badly in restaurants, I lived in NYC until recently and am all too familiar with the little boy bankers! But let be honest here, kids are much more volitile than adults in general.
I think that if you have your kid with you at a restaurant, it can be hard to see from an outside perspective how they are affecting the other diners, kind of like that loud table, who doesn't realise how loud they are!

I think there is a big difference between a regular "nice" restaurant and one that is so exclusive there is a waiting list and charges upwards of $250/plate. I see absolutely no reason why kids should ever be present in the latter.

Restaurants are privately owned.. I think owners can do whatever they want. There was a local diner here that banned animals because a man let his service dog eat food off of a plate on the floor. Obviously there are rules for service dogs but if a restaurant can turn you away for not wearing a sport coat, they could definitely kick you out for a screaming baby. Or an adult screaming and making a scene. Or a service animal barking... No matter what, someone's gonna get upset about it and there will be an uproar and boycott. That restaurant needs a host that can handle those situations better. But a restaurant that makes you pre pay... Not so sure that's high on their priority list! I don't think they're concerned about a boycott..

@looch: I think it was Singapore airlines that I originally read about? In the article it mentioned that some other airlines were thinking of following suit.

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think I would support a baby ban. Maybe after a certain time? Ideally parents of fussy kids would take them out of the dining area even before the meltdown/screaming, and other diners would be ok with that. A little give and take is just part of living in a society. I think @plantains made some good points about lifestyle. On the other hand some parents need a swift kick in the ass to behave appropriately. I also don't see why this had to become such a big deal as to end up in the news.

@plantains: @nana87: I don't know, I really don't think this can be dismissed as being a NYC thing or a regional difference. I lived in NYC for years and I still appreciate very nice restaurants being geared towards adults. Even if there is loud conversation going on in a restaurant, a screaming baby is a totally different noise that you can still hear even in a loud restaurant. And in dim lighting, the electronics that it seems most parents use to keep their kids quiet these days are really annoying.

I am used to thousands of babys everywhere so my opinion might not count. But I find so many more things more offensive than a little baby. Like loud talkers or drunk people or people spitting into their napkins the entire meal. All of which I have seen at local "high end" restaurants. Babies crying do not bug me.

But parents who let their kids run around in restaurants bug me. I don't care that your kid has too much energy and wants to bump every patrons chair while they run around, if they cant sit still for an hour to eat, don't bring them out!

@MrsSCB: I think we may need to agree to disagree on this. I just don't see a bunch of kids screaming in restaurants, and when their parents give them iphones to keep them quiet they usually have headphones.

For me, I will keep taking my kid to high end restaurants so long she continues to behave and they continue to take my money.

@MrsSCB: I didn't mean to imply that it was only NYC: I was mostly commenting on the difference of opinion I was seeing from New Yorkers and people from other places on this particular thread. I lived in DC for 4 years (where dh grew up and ate at restaurants regularly) and was thinking of it as well, and have gone out to eat with my nieces in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Ann Arbor (small Michigan town where I grew up and ate at restaurants regularly, and where my nieces now live). What I meant was there's a difference between a quiet, adult type of restaurant (in all of those cities, and I think more common in less urban areas), and restaurants that I'd still consider "nice" but that are loud enough that I don't think would be inappropriate for children.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that there are different types of nice restaurants, and maybe there are more likely to have a certain type of nice restaurants that I think a well-behaved child is fine dining in in a place like NYC (or any other Urban area like DC or the Bay Area). Using NYC/Upper West Side examples, I've seen plenty of kids in restaurants like Tolani, Cafe Frida, or Nice Matin. These are more high end than a lot of other restaurants but still nothing like Dovetail or Boulud Sud, where I would not take a kid until they were much older, since they are louder and not as formal (ie, no dress code, no table cloths).