To expect my local coffee shop to let me in with a pram?

[Shockingundercrackers]

Will try to keep this brief. My local coffee shop owner has just refused me entry with a pram (not a massive silver cross call the midwife one, just a bugaboo style thing). He said he was busy (he wasn't, and although its a small place there were only two other customers inside) and that buggies had to be parked outside. I can see the logic of this, but a pram with a 5 week old sleeping baby in it isn't really a buggy is it? Or is it?

I should have remonstrated with the grumpy fecker of course, but it had taken me so long to get said infant out of the house and I was so hungry and tired I thought I might embarrass myself and start blubbing. I beat a hasty retreat.

I've been fuming ever since of course. AIBU?

[SilverApples]

How about the camp that doesn't mind children and babies if they are with considerate and thoughtful parents who are prepared to be proactive about problems and issues?
Aware of the impact on other customers?
That sort of thing?
Our local independent cafe is lovely, and child-friendly. Most of the PITA parents seem to go to cafe Nero, the teens go to Starbucks.

[ilovesooty]

Agree with expat

And I think that the number of child friendly initiatives over the years have arguably been disadvantageous to parents. They've certainly resulted in less tolerance of children, not more.

People often actively avoid child friendly establishments and adult only environments are decreasing in number.

[BackforGood]

Totally agree with Flipchart (+Usual,Silver,Jenai, Expat earlier on, and others).
It is right that business owners have a right to choose what they offer. As customers, we then have the choice to decide which businesses we frequent. Once your little dc are no longer little (or if they are, but you've arranged to pay a babysitter for them) it's nice to be able to do things in peace, without small dc around sometimes. Choice is the key here.

[Shockingundercrackers]

I'm struggling to keep up... Got a very refluxy newborn in a sling and a three year old making worryingly scrapey noises in the bathroom. No time for anything with small people is there?

Which sort of brings me back to my original point. I'd had a perfectly hideous day yesterday (new baby and me both in tears pretty much all till tea time) and all I wanted to do this morning was feel normal.

Or as normal as you can get when you're a 40 cough something mother of two small children. I wanted some coffee and the chance to read up on the parliamentary shenanigans of the night before. I thought I'd get a paper, a fancy feta cheese wrap thing and a little sit down somewhere not festooned in gobbed-on muslin cloths. I couldn't have got as far as a kid friendly cafe, and in any case, I wouldn't have wanted to. Hell, as we all know after all, is other people's children.

I was denied.

The denier was a bit of an arse.

I wont go there again.

I feel better for sharing.

[Shockingundercrackers]

Artex I'd lol at that were I not such an old fart... I did laugh though. Out loud.

She's quite right you know. Tis all downhill from here.

I really do feel better now. Dangerously better. Wine o'clock anyone?

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

If you are the only cafe in the area, with any others requiring a £4.40 bus journey, and you are nearly empty when a woman plus pram appears, and you subsequently turn that woman away, then I think you have your business model wrong. As someone upthread said, the vast majority of custom during the day for most cafes is mothers with kids.

I used to be a waitress in a coffee shop and our biggest bugbear was the owner who had visions of a San Francisco-style music & coffee shop. To this end he wouldn't let us turn the music down even when customers begged us to, and said they were leaving because they couldn't hear each other speak, at 10am, over the music. It was not a student area, it was well off the beaten track and attracted mainly early breakfast/lunch office workers, plus some lost tourists. Funnily enough, that branch folded. Moral of the story: know your clientele and adapt!

[flipchart]

how do you see if there is a range of places child or not child friendly?

Local knowledge.

Also kid friendly tends to be in bright colours and have information like child menus advertised (and they have a load of mums with buggy's blocking the aisle!!)

[SilverApples]

Some of my favourite cafes are upstairs, or have an upstairs.
That works well.

[usualsuspect]

I usually stick up for the mum's on the 'cafe' threads on MN.

But as I've been labelled a miserable old sod.

I won't bother again.

[usualsuspect]

I've had some right barneys on here,defending noisy kids blah blah.

I still think the cafe owner in this instance wasn't wrong though.

[Bowlersarm]

OP could you just leave the pram outside and carry your baby into the cafe?

Just lift baby out, and have him/her in your lap (not a sling), or propped over your shoulder, while you are sitting at table enjoying lovely coffee. And cake. I think that's what I used to do. Although that was in the olden days.

Yes please to o'clock.

[MrsGeologist]

It's his cafe and his rules OP, but I agree that he was a right miserable git. It's not unreasonable to not want to leave your newborn outside on their own.

My mum struggled with a two year old and a newborn. Cafes didn't have facilities for us, buses were a right PITA, and shopping was a nightmare. She hated it and wouldn't wish that on me. She thinks things being more child friendly and easier for parents is absolutely fantastic (I've never seen someone so happy to be able to park I. A P&C space at a supermarket)
She struggled, but the fact that things are easier for me doesn't make me entitled or precious.

If the cafe wasn't busy, and you wouldn't have unreasonably got in anyone's way by being there then he was just being a miserable twat.

[ivykaty44]

Could you not fold up buggy and put baby in high chair?

Can you put a 5 week old baby in a highchair?

[BoffinMum]

It sounds like one of those moments when you want to say 'Oh, yes, normally that would be fine but I have been up all night with him and he has finally dropped off and I am desperate for one of your coffees, would 20 minutes be alright?' whilst radiating charm and niceness.

But what actually happens is that you walk off crying, or the cafe owner is a bit grumpy and refuses anyway, or the day just goes tits up from that point onwards anyway.

Move to the southern Mediterranean and they'll probably carry the pram in for you and make you feel like a childbearing goddess instead of a knackered hormonal blob. Some places occasionally are like that here, but not many.

[chebella]

boffin that is funny - I was just thinking how different it is here in Italy - plenty of firmly offered "advice" but it's really touching (sometimes literally!)how much babies are welcomed and by proxy parents. Huge status in being a mamma here and on 'those' days OP it's nice to get out and eat cake/feel like you are worthwhile. Miserable cafe owner - don't go back!

[MrsGeologist]

artex

[usualsuspect]

I.m blocking her way, with my fat old arse.

[usualsuspect]

oh sorry is that my zimmer frame in the way.

[usualsuspect]

I had to google Dignitas.

ha ha bloody ha

[usualsuspect]

[SleepyFish]

I think regardless of whether the coffee shop owner was right or wrong it is utterly shit when this happens.
I had an identical experience once when ds was a few weeks old. He was a very difficult baby, had awful reflux and screamed whenever he was tired which was all the time as he never bloody slept.
The only thing that made him sleep was long bumpy walks so after finally getting him to sleep after walking miles on no sleep I was desperate for a sit down coffee, went into an empty coffee shop to be told no prams, like I was going to wake him.
I actually cried, the next nearest coffee shop was another 20 minute walk by which time he would be awake again.

[FrigginRexManningDay]

I have the perfect solution. Us old hags bags can carry our saggy old tits in wheelbarrows and get all afronted when folk don't make way for us. There will be rows of barrows outside cafes.