To be fuming at this restaurant?

[Ginge85]

I recently went to a restaurant with my best friend and DS who is 14 months old for lunch. We'd never been before. When I asked for a highchair for DS they promptly brought us one and I'd never ever thought this restaurant would be not a child friendly place.
My friend and I ordered drinks and our food and shortly afterwards I started to feed DS a smallish pot of pasta I'd made and brought with us. There was nothing really on the menu I would've ordered for him, and anything I could've done he would've barely eaten any and would've been a waste of money. I was then therefore extremely baffled and shocked when the waitor came over and awkwardly told us that any food that wasn't bought in the restaurant couldn't be consumed there . He was talking about DS's pasta. I could understand if we as adults had brought our own food and we're eating it but for a baby?! Our bill would've come to around £35 with what we'd ordered also. He was very persistent with this and in the end we walked out before our food had come (we didn't pay for our drinks- but hadn't drank from that as yet). I'm baffled and fuming! Any other time I've been out for lunch every other restaurant has never ever said anything, and have been more than happy to get me a bowl of hot water to warm it up if needed. AIBU?

Oh dear ......I think you were very unreasonable.
Next time ,phone ahead and confirm if you can feed toddler home food,if not ,find a child friendly place that DC can eat from your plate .

I've always brought some food with me for my ds since he has multiple food allergy. Most restaurant/cafe let him have them, even he isn't baby/toddler any more.
But, I always ask first, explain the situation, and they are fine. Never been told he can't have his own food. If I was told no, I would simply choose to go somewhere else.

But I think it really depend on what kind of restaurant it is.

*I'm confused by all the people saying feed the baby off your plate. It makes no difference whatsoever to the restaurant's takings whether you feed a baby off your plate or bring your own food. Either way, you are not buying the baby a meal, so it's a stupid argument.•

It's nothing to do with takings.
The restaurant policy is not to eat food brought in from home.
If her child was hungry then feeding him something from her plate would have been OK.

There was no kids menu. It was a 'soul food' Jamaican type cafe. We didn't plan on eating there, we were close by and hungry so we went in. The pasta was in my bag regardless of our plans that day- we had no set plans.
Of course I know that bringing your own food in is against policy. If I'd have done that, or any other child who wasn't in a high chair then yes I completely get it. But when two adults are ordering a full order, and my baby (who at 14 months, is very much still a 'baby', it's irrelevant what other people's DC were like/doing at that age) is eating a small coaster sized tub of pasta that I am spoon feeding him, I don't see the big deal and think discretion should be used. It has never been a problem anywhere else before, and I've even had staff at other places offer to bring some hot water over and consult me on the size of the bowl I'd like! Because of this I was genuinely unaware that this was an issue for a baby- is it an issue with a pouch of Ella's kitchen? A bottle of formula?

This being said I do realise I should've asked, all the times I haven't, and I'm lucky it's never been mentioned before apparently. I will be asking in future most definitely. If the waitor had told us politely it would have been a totally different story. But as KitKats says customer service is about making customers happy, and thankfully this is my main experience in all of the places I've worked or eaten. I'm not 'brazenly entitled', just maybe a little naive on this as it's never been my experience and I didn't believe this rule applied to babies.

Restaurants have reasons other than financial for not allowing people to bring their own food in.
They don't necessarily want some warm, alien, festered tuna/egg Tupperware wafting around their dining room, having spent vast amounts of resources on making sure it is as pleasant as can possibly be for their customers. They may not want their dining room image ruined by neon plastic pots and detritus which has been brought from home. Then there's little Ethel's Mum on Table 3 kicking right off because Little Gary's Mum (Table 6), brought him a Fruit Shoot and a Munch Bunch yogurt and now it's ALL she wants, but the restaurant don't sell it.
Also, why should the restaurants dispose of left over foodstuffs, detritus and other general mess that appears out of the carryalls of the nation, and not from their kitchen. They shouldn't, imo.
That said, I do think staff should be courteous, understanding and helpful in addressing this with parents and try to be as accommodating as possible. It is the 'hospitality' industry, after all.

14 months is hardly a baby OP.
Choose somewhere to eat that can accommodate your child.

Hes old enough to eat some of what your having.

It's quite often H&S related.

If you child had become ill as a result then you could have argued that the food you brought from home could have been contaminated in the restaurant. Or you could have become ill as a result (from say licking the spoon) and blamed it on the food you'd bought there.

You might not and it might not have gone anywhere anyay, but that could have been the reason. It's the reason I was given.

Which seems to make sense, tbh.

Oh I'm so embarrassed for you. One for what you did in the first place and two for the way you're doing the oh so typical 'Aibu?' 'Yep' 'Noooo because....'

I think people are missing the point about the policy on bringing food in, the baby eating from the OP plate and profit. It might seem pedantic or petty to enforce a rule on bringing in food, but having worked in hospitality (a long time ago admittedly!) you do get loads of people bringing in sandwiches, snacks, booze etc and it gets pretty wearing! NOT SAYING THIS WOULD APPLY TO YOU OP but these are usually the people who leave the table and area an absolute shit tip with their kids brought in left overs everywhere or sit for four hours with one coffee. You can't have rules that apply only to certain people -you either have a ban on bringing in food or not. Pasta isn't a baby food, its a meal. You don't need to order from the kids menu if you don't want the usual kids pizza etc, I ordered side dishes or extras. Asking if the kitchen can serve you a plain pasta in a small size or similar isn't usually refused.
Of course you are not the worst person in the world op, its only a small disagreement over a rule! It doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. As you can see from this thread, people all have different opinions on what is and isn't acceptable as do resteraunts. I'm sure you can easily find other places that will accommodate you. I don't think the resteraunt were wrong with their policy, but if they were rude then of course that wasn't great.

My 14 month old is very much a baby. He was Prem, he's very small for his age, he's not walking. Sorry he's a baby.

This policy isn't in place to protect the restaurant's profit margin. They don't want food of unknown origins being daubed about the place, and they don't want cool bags and Tupperware everywhere making the place look like an upturned picnic.

This is so commonplace I'm surprised that anyone would question it if they were told to put their packed lunch away.

Ok. Then a soul food place isn't the right setting to feed him.
You ABU.

So I'd never deliberately not pay for anything

But you did. You didn't pay for drinks placed on your table nor the 2 meals you ordered.

You can't make up your own rules when dining in a cafe/restaurant.

YABU

FFS sorry about my spelling mistakes!

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all, he's a baby, fair enough if you got your sarnies out for yourself!

You've changed your tune about the waiter - he was arkward and persistent in your OP but in later posts he has become 'extremely rude' . So you are unreasonable for that

I think you were unreasonable to feed your D.C. Your own food without asking. I ate out loads with my D.C. but wouldn't have done this without asking. If the restaurant didn't have food for my D.C. I would have gone somewhere else.

To be fair I did often only order plain pasta so still not great for the restaurant. 🤷🏻‍♀️

How does DS eating OP's food benefit the restaurant? They don't get any extra money.

It's a slippery slope.... at what age should a restaurant apply the 'no food eaten unless bought on premises' rule? Will parents have to produce IDs for babies under 12 months old?

I have been in restaurants where the adults have ordered meals and slipped sandwiches and nibbles under the table to toddlers.

I always used to do this with my kids at that age- I thought it was normal but my kids are older. Perhaps times have changed.

You keep repeating how young for his age your child is, op. But if he's capable of eating pasta, he's capable of eating a wide range of other things too.
If he was so premature that he was still on mush, you may have had a point. But he eats pasta... There are no grounds for bringing your own pasta.

Btw, why doesn't he eat other things? It's not because he can't?

To be fair, lots of places round here are quite happy to warm baby food or for babies to eat their own food from home. It depends how old the child is I think, if they're at the age of mushy jars of food I think it's fine to take your own. Old enough to eat a starter or something off your plate, not okay. I would ask before I sat down though as I think it's perfectly understandable if restaurants don't wish to allow this. Asking first would have avoided this situation.

A 14 months old is a baby on feet. I think the restaurant was being ridiculous.

I dunno why you couldnt have either (1) chose somewhere more apporpriate if this place really wasnt (2) just ordered something plain like a portion of mash or fries or salad (3) when they said it wasnt allowed applogised and asked to order something simple?

Ex-restaurant manager here. Any of the places I worked, we wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Might have sighed a bit if you left pasta all over the floor, but even then it wouldn't have been a biggie.

If you hadn't brought any food and the baby was hungry we'd have comped you a bit of bread or something.