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 ?

Hont- it took him twenty min to come and take our orders . We had all discussed what we wanted ( the kids all went for the same thing) prior to leaving to save time .

YABU. I don't think the issue had anything to do with the children. I think he probably didn't want you in there because you picked a fight with another customer and then picked a fight with him.

There was no need for you to confront the grumbling woman and if you'd just ignored her in all likelihood you could just have enjoyed your meal and left. At best if she was bothering you then you should have asked the owner to intervene rather than starting a row. It certainly wasn't your place to lecture her on 'family friendly restaurants'. Even when you had confronted her all you had to do was assure the cafe owner that your children would be well behaved rather than saying you couldn't 'guarantee' it which probably gave the impression that they wouldn't be.

To be honest by the time it got to that point they probably just wanted shot of you. Picking fights with other customers and arguing with staff is not going to make you a customer they want.

I'm sorry but for that number of kids you should have gone to McDonalds. I don't appreciate noisy groups of kids when I am treating myself to a nice lunch or dinner. Even if they were talking at a normal level, that many kids in one place is too many. Go somewhere more appropriate in the future maybe?

I don't think owner handled it well but I also don't think you should have gone over to the old lady and asked her if there was a problem, that is provocative. Large groups are often pretty noisy irrespective of the number of children - I would have been a bit fed up too in their shoes.

The other customer was turning her head round ever few min and making a loud comment. I couldn't relax and kept on telling the children to speak in Even softer voices.
How did you expect me to enjoy my meal with someone glaring and commenting at you throughout ? I could see the children
werent behaving any differently to everyone else.
I assured him that the children were going to remain seated and that nobody was running or shouting . He still said they had to sit quietly . He then insisted we stay .Maybe I should have stayed if I really wanted to piss everyone off ?

A table of 15 is always going to be loud!

At least you weren't all drunk and shouting!

I think he probably got the sense that you were a troublemaker from you approaching the woman who was rolling her eyes at you. I'd roll my eyes too if I were seated next to a table of 10 toddlers.

I have some sympathy for him, regardless of how responsibly you might have managed the situation - he's only human to anticipate some level of mayhem given the size of the party.

For those of you who are pointing out that large parties with children aren't always welcome simply because of the extra noise regardless of their behaviour , that's fine . It is certainly something I will think about the next time we eat out ( although we only ever have a party this size one every two years since the other sisters are scattered around the globe !)

Don't give it/him anymore thought - just smile to yourself when the "To Let" sign goes up over the door - goes without saying - his loss...

Tip- there was one toddler in a highchair, not 10

he didn't ask us to be considerate
He said they need to be quiet

that kind of translate the same thing, doesn't it? I did read that he did not even ask you to leave, it seemed that you made the situation. I agree with above, the whole thing was becoming really awkward if you started discussing with the other customer.

Think of places like TGI Friday. My personal idea of hell, when it's not groups of noisy children, it's various hen/stag nights on their pre-night drinks, often at the same time as so many people start drinking early. That said, if at least 2 of my kids have a couple of friends, it's a great place to go because you know you won't bothering anyone there. It's just loud, the kids love the food and thank god for the cocktails.

If you say that you believe the place to be over priced, keeping it reasonably quiet for all the customers might be important for the owners.

I can see you were being very reasonable, and your kids behaving but tbh if I'd walked in and saw that amount of kids at a table, I'd have walked straight back out again.

But it was very rude of the owner to tell your children to be quiet when they weren't making noise. He clearly wasn't comfortable with the number of you all and should have said so when your table size became apparent. Glad you found somewhere nice to go. 5 sisters sounds an amazing family

Is it socially acceptable to comment loudly and continuously about other people for just being there?

How did you find a table big enough in the café - did you have help putting tables together? Agree that large chain restaurants like TGI, Harvester etc are better for big groups.

He put the tables together for us , yumi
I've always thought we were lucky living around lots of good independent shops and cafes but will definitely re think using them for larger parties now ( although like I have said , these are once every couple of years)

I'd avoid anywhere with table service that had a party of your size, even if you were quiet, as the meal goes on there's likely to be increased noise levels, whining, several toilet trips etc, fine and par for the course with kids, but I'm not paying money to be near that.
I think you'd be much better off with a chain such as brewsters or similar, the food is ok, they expect and actively encourage children and it's easier all round.

The owner may well be kicking himself and wishing he'd kept quiet, but presumably he knows what generally works in his cafe and worried your group just wouldn't.
It's really not easy for independents these days.

10 children to 5 adults is a very high ratio of children, and my experience of the noise level of "chatting and laughing" that parents are fine with is that squealing and occasional yelling is also a part of it, especially with so few adults to oversee.

I personally wouldnt go into a cafe with a group like that in it because I find that kind of noise level uncomfortable, and the profit margin on kids food and drinks is no-where near that of adults. I'd think that losing 10 children customers is about equal to losing maybe 4 adults, and a group that size is likely to be there for a very long time.

Tricky one as he knew the size of your party then, I would feel a bit upset in your shoes, the problem was going over to the lady and talking to her made things worse. They probably would have gone before too long if you had ignored them, and if you were all reasonably quiet then you would have had the higher ground.

If I poked my head through the door and espied 10 kids and 5 adults at a table, I'm afraid I'd keep on walking
So would I because in my experience even when parents think their children are "well behaved" they're often still too noisy for me.

Am not saying ours were well behaved
I've seen badly behaved children and probably far more acceptably behaved ones
He welcomed us in and then twenty minutes in asked if the children could sit quietly
I'm getting the impression that perhaps they were a little louder than you realise?

On its website it's advertised as 'family friendly'
There's a bit of difference between an average family of 4 and a "family" of 15 though. A large group will make more noise than the equal number of people split into 4 smaller groups because of people competing with eachother to be heard.

Storm - the eight, nine , ten and twelve year olds all wanted a full veggie breakfast each . Only 2 of the ten would not have had a full meal.

I suspect you weren't nearly as quiet as you think you were. Large groups are always noisy and large groups of kids usually more so. Even well behaved kids want to talk to their friend at the other end of the table. Ten kids doing this is LOUD.

I also would walk past if I saw a large group for that very reason.

I think he probably got the sense that you were a troublemaker from you approaching the woman who was rolling her eyes at you. I'd roll my eyes too if I were seated next to a table of 10 toddlers.

The children were not all toddlers, they were aged 3-10.

The lady did not just roll her eyes, she commented loudly, 'there's more of them now' . Was she not a troublemaker also?

As for large groups of children putting other customers off, personally if I wouldn't bat an eyelid and it would probably bother me more to have a large group of adults, often they are as loud as kids and no parents to tell them to shut up!

Thanks for the replies
Am starting to see this differently - perhaps an independent cafe isn't the place to go with a large party with lots of children !
On the other hand the owner was probably being U to insist we stay but remain quiet . He should have stopped us at the door - that would have been understandable .
Thanks for the responses.

Mrmessy - I felt she was a troublemaker too
No idea why this is seen as perfectly fine behaviour.

Mrmessy - I think there's still an element of 'children should be seen and not heard ' prevalent .
If it was 10 men actually shouting and laughing i bet nobody would bat an eyelid !