Restaurant owner asking us to keep children quiet?

[tearsinmyeyes]

Who is being U here?

Met up with my sisters for brunch . We have ten children between five of us. We all live in different countries and today was the last day of seeing each other so we fancied
Going out for a bite to eat . We picked a local casual cafe that is large enough to accommodate 10 of us with plenty more space (including a one year old with highchair . The others were between 3-12).
We were sat on table discussing what to order . Obviously we were a party of fifteen so we weren't exactly quiet but we were talking at normal volume . The children were all seated . I noticed when we walked in there was an elderly lady and her friend and one of them rolled her eyes at us and then kept turning and glaring . When my youngest sister arrived with thenlast child she said loudly 'there's more of them now'. I approached her and said 'is there a problem ?' And she said 'there's too many of you and I can't hear my friend talk, why have you got so many children ?' I said , am sorry if you're stressed out but the children are talking at normal volume and this is a family friendly cafe.' The owner then approached us and said 'I've got lunch hour coming and last week I lost customers because a family had kids running around and misbehaving '. I asked him to look around the table and said 'all the children are sat down. We've told them to speak in soft voices and nobody Is running around misbehaving . We are also paying customers and you can't expect the children to eat in silence '. He said 'well they're all quiet now please keep it that way '. I said 'they're quiet because they're watching this conversation . I can't guarantee they'll remain silent throughout the meal'. He kept going on about it so Then we decided between us we were not comfortable to stay and left .
To be honest I felt it unreasonable to tell customers to be quiet when they weren't screaming / shouting. Of course a table of 15 is going to produce some noise but everyone was talking at a normal volume.
AIBU to think this restaurant owner was rude and to not want to eat there again ?

The old lady was tutting and grumbling and it doesn't seem to have bothered anybody else in the cafe. It was the OPs response which seems to have been the one which disrupted the cafe for the rest of the customers.

She lost the moral high ground when she caused a scene.

"oh god, there's MORE of them now".

That's not tutting and grumbling. That's being downright fucking rude.

It's definitely downright provocative, and totally passive aggressive, I agree. I'd be really hacked off if I was her companion and that was all she talked about through the meal.

It sounds like it was a campaign to get rid of the OP and her party actually.

The worst restaurant experience I've ever had was ruined by a large table of 'adults' who were progressively noisier and drunken as their meal went on.
I hate uncontrollable kids running round and screaming in restaurants/cafes but kids sitting down, talking & eating I have no problem with. Kids are quite capable of this and we shouldn't write off all families as being a nightmare to be around.

I think I tend to spend more when the kids are there as we will have starters and puddings and copious amounts of drinks where we won't always when on our own.

I think the cafe handled it badly and assumed (probably wrongly) due to past experience that you were going to be more hassle than it was worth, however he should have said something when you came in not 20mins later when he finally pulled his finger out. The best way to deal with places like this is to just stop going to them, they rely on custom to exist, move on and go to places that do welcome you.
Glad you found somewhere that did.

I don't know what thread Margaret is on.
Disrupted for the rest of the cafe? They were all heavily engrossed in their meals like normal people would be . She was spouting off comments about my family in a clear loud voice whilst looking over the table in my direction. I actually went to her rather than calling over my table like she was. I'm at a loss here- her aggressive comments disrupted my experience deliberately . This thread wasn't about whether she was unreasonable as I have no doubt in my mind that she was aggressive and rude .

@Mittens1969 I think you're completely right, kids who misbehave do tend to stick in your memory more so than kids who do behave - which is a shame as all kids then get tarnished with the 'most kids can't behave in a restaurant' opinion. My DS who is only 3.5 has always been well behaved when we've been out, he does have his usual 'toddler' moments (sitting down in a supermarket aisle & refusing to move) but the only way to teach them to behave is to actually take them out and if they do something wrong, you explain to them the best way you can that they can't do that (that's what I think anyway)

Look if it's classed as a family friendly cafe then that's what it should be.
I have young kids, they have their moments but that woman was rude.She started all the unpleasantness. What she didn't bank on was someone pulling her up.

It's the summer holidays cafes are going to be filled with famillies.

If you can't stand kids or noise either
A stay at home
B goto a more adult establishment.Its not rocket science.

@SparkleMotions, that's exactly right. I don't expect young children to behave like little adults. I was thinking back actually and I can't remember noticing kids behaving noticeably badly all that often, obviously it happens. But not enough for me to think, oh no I won't go in there because there's a large group of people, including quite a few children. Shock horror! I go into a cafe to enjoy a meal I haven't cooked myself and to enjoy the company of friends or family and I understand why others want to do the same.

However, I do sometimes get grossed out by the behaviour of a group of adults when drunk and loud in restaurants, now that really does annoy me. They get much louder than young children IME.