Effectively asked to leave cafe..AIBU or was he?

[Hoptoit]

Today my husband, 3 yo and 2 yo twins went for lunch in a small local cafe that we go to maybe once a month. It's quite informal and I took the pile of kids toys as an indication that families were welcome. The twins were fractious and hungry, and having a bit of a shout, but we ordered food and waited for them to settle. There were about two other tables of people in there at this time.

After we ordered the owner made a comment along the lines of 'give it a rest now kids' which I took as a joke, then about 5 minutes later, after the children's food had arrived, but before my husbands and mine had he came over and said,'your going to have to stop them making this noise, they are disturbing everyone else lunch. It's just not on.'

So, my husband ate a bit of his lunch then took the twins to sit in the car while I picked at mine. Just after he left a lovely lady on the table next to us came over to say she'd heard what he said and was disgusted and wanted me to know she hadn't complained to him about the noise, and that she planned to say something to him when she left. I'm ashamed to say that I was so embarrassed and stressed that this made me cry.

As I went to pay my £30 bill for the mostly uneaten food, he asked me if everything had been ok?! I said I was mortified by what he'd said. He got all chippy and defensive about it so I didn't say anymore.

It has ruined what should have been a lovely day. Twins aren't easy and I am very conscious if not impacting on other people negatively, but this place gives the impression of being child friendly, and we weren't letting them run wild or anything like that.

So what do you think, was he out of line or should we have left sooner? It was a terrible mortifying experience.

It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. At a family friendly establishment, the manager should be prepared to deal with the problem of noisy children and should have handled it better.

However, it sounds like you may have underestimated the impact that your children "screaming and shouting" would have on other diners in a small space and unfortunately you dismissed his first attempt to get them to quiet down as a joke, maybe it wouldn't have developed into such an issue if he could have seen that you were addressing it.

"Yep, a bit of pre-lunch screaming and shouting"

So you take them outside until they are quiet again, you don't "wait for them to settle". You say you made "every effort to pacify" your children but you didn't really, did you?

Your attempts to pacify weren't working so why remain there letting them scream and shout?

YABU.

If you were "actively managing" their noise surely you'd have taken them out earlier?

Yikes! You make pre-lunch screaming and shouting sound like it's normal

Take them outside until the food comes and give them a small biscuit or something. Don't let them get that hungry if they are prone to causing such a fuss. I can't imagine any proprietor wanting to intervene unless he or she thought it necessary. And he had to ask twice! Maybe potential customers were putting their heads around the door then beating a hasty retreat!

"The twins were fractious and hungry, and having a bit of a shout, but we ordered food and waited for them to settle. "

"Yep, a bit of pre-lunch screaming and shouting"

"after the children's food had arrived, but before my husbands and mine had he came over and said,'your going to have to stop them making this noise, they are disturbing everyone else lunch. It's just not on.'"

OP, that last comment of your I've quoted - the children by then had their food. But they must still have been making noise; how else could he have asked for the noise to stop? So, were the children still 'screaming and shouting'?

Based on what you said - and these are all quotes of your own posts - I think you may be minimising to yourself just how much noise your children were making.

I did sort of wonder why they kept up after food arrived if they were so hungry - wouldn't they have dived straight in?

I disagree that the owner was trying to make you feel uncomfortable. He'd hardly have has asked if everything was ok and seeing the half eaten plates in that case.

Your last post showed you are being entirely unreasonable OP.

Discounting posters views because they clearly have older children and have forgotten what it's like. How condescending. Not quite sure why you think all the posts have clarified the fact that the cafe owner was being unreasonable. You are just reading what you want to be told, and ignoring all the rest.

mine are older but i also had 3 under 4s
we didn't use to go to many small cafes with them,so as not to disturb other people
i quite clearly remember taking it in turns to walk with them outside while waiting for food to arrive as well

yes-I dunno, I do kind of expect, that when I go about my daily life, there will be kids there. And that those kids will, well be kids.

I don't expect them to act like mini-adults. They are learning and they will make mistakes, including throwing strops my god I work with enough adults who throw strops

I don't expect that, between normal daylight hours, kids won't be around.

I do kind of expect that parents will be trying to get them to behave, although I do accept that a lot of this can go on behind the scenes with some kids, esp older ones, that some disabilities can be hidden, etc and I try not to judge.

But really, to go out at lunchtime for a meal, somewhere that signals that its kid friendly, and be unable to cope with fractious toddlers? Seriously? That just seems crazy entitled to me.

I agree WhereYouLeftIt and also it's not uncommon for parents of 3 very small children to be so used to the level of noise, they don't realise how loud it actually is to other people.

I saw a family asked to leave a cafe a couple of months ago. Not so much because of the noise the kids were making, but more their parents refusal to do anything to limit it.

Both parents were glued to their mobile phones and didn't even flinch at the ear piercing screams.

I'm not going to bother anymore you clearly think screaming and shouting is acceptable behaviour. Good luck with that.

I think she have to be there girls this one. Huge difference. If children screaming not nice for others eating there (high pitched child scream gets through you) but if normal chatter can't see the problem. Do say you very brave taking 3 out that young at weekend to small cafe. We didn't manage one. Uk not anti child just anti bad behaviour child. I can see both sides of this as had a meal ruined by screaming child once. We left never to return and I left feedback on trip advisor. (Awful food as well)

I can see two sides here, and as others have said, difficult one to call without actually being there....BUT I honestly think that at the point at which he said

your going to have to stop them making this noise, they are disturbing everyone else lunch. It's just not on (though I do hope he said you're and not your...relax, I'm just teasing )

you should have said 'well in that case please cancel our order, we'll get out of your hair, permanently' No way would I have paid £30 when he was effectively handing me a get out of jail café free card

Nobody has said they expect perfectly behaved, or silent, children.

What most people expect is for parents to be aware of how the behave of their children is impacting on others, and to make the effort to minimise that impact. It's a pain for parents but it's part and parcel of being a parent. Accepting children shouting as being fine in somewhere like a cafe is unfair on other diners.

Try taking someone disabled out for dinner to be gawped at
Or last year she was helpfully called a joey for minding her own bloody business

Und attitude stinks regarding behaviour when normal adults cUt even behave normally

I have to say the UK is not anti-child at all. We've just come back from a week in Somerset. DS2 has been terribly fractious because he's had awful ulcers in his mouth so if he eats the wrong thing he was screaming in pain. Obviously this made a lot of noise but the people in the places we ate in when he was kicking off couldn't have been kinder.

And also, sometimes you do have to 'leave them to it'. DS2 is 21 months & had a major tantrum when we went out to eat, luckily nearly every other family there had small children. We tried everything to calm him & nothing worked so we left him alone & he soon calmed down.

perhaps many of your children are older and you have forgotten how unpredictable they can be at this age

No one disagrees that they can be unpredictable which is why one of you should have taken them outside until they were quieter.

Why didnt you take them to play with the toys?

The toys imply children are welcome, understands they can get fractious so provides an area with toys so other customers arent disturbed.

It was handled incredibly badly by the owner/manager but at that age i always had snacks and toys in my bag for distraction, if there were two of us one of us would take them outside and have a word and if mine were making noise enough for someone to comment (or even glare at us) I would threaten them with straight home if everyone didn't settle down).

I would complain about how it was handled and I have a lot of sympathy for you but would also lool at ways to avoid it in future.

I have to agree with the majority of replies here - obviously none of us can judge fairly without having been there, but going on what you have written (as quoted by Whaereyou left it) it doesn't sound as if it were normal chatting or even grizzliness, and it doesn't sound like you were making that much effort to do anything about it. You had 2 adults with you - one could easily have taken one or two of them outside to distract them for a bit whilst waiting for the food.

I knew someone will say that UK is so anti-kids (grin).

On the other hand in the countries that are supposed to be 'very child friendly' you will never hear a parent saying 'it was a mortifying experience' if the waiter asksyou to keep your kids quite.

If coffee shops have to deal with such over-sensitive parents then i can see why some of them dont want them there.

"waited for them to settle" is not the same as "every effort taken to pacify them whilst waiting for food"

They were "having a bit of a shout" from when you sat down, through you ordering food and for 5 minutes after that. That is a long time for them to be "having a bit of a shout." It doesn't sound like you were making much of an effort to keep them calmer.

The UK 'anti kids' thing is just lazily trotted out on threads like this

I think some people would rather imagine it's true, than think they were in any way to blame for not trying to limit the impact their kids have on the people around them.

Places I ate in with small shouty kids.
Macdonalds
Harvester
The cafe above out local sports centre that was always packed with kids.

KFC
Morrisons cafe
Asda cafe

Places I never went to with small shouty kids.

Anywhere else at all until they had gone passed that grisly shouty stage.

Sorry op I think yabu.

I do feel for you and remember it well .

My advice is to stick to the places that are more accepting and/or have kiddie entertainment of some sort (we have a great soft play near us with the best food... Total god send)

The owner, however, does have a right to do this though and to manage his business any way he likes.

And it wasnt that long ago. My kids are 6,4 and 4months and the same rules still apply on the rare occasions they play up in public. At home that's a different matter.... tantrum central at times but out and about they behave.