If your child vomited in a restaurant what would you do?

[TheTiredBartender]

Don't read this post if talking about vomit disturbs you.

I work FOH in a nice independent restaurant. It's expensive and quite formal. Not really a place for small children but we do have a lot of families eating with us during the holidays.

It's day 2 of half term here and I have had 2 different children vomit in my restaurant. I honestly can not believe how the parents involved have behaved. I need to get this off my chest.

The first one yesterday was dreadful. Poor child stood in the middle of the room, gagging and retching, and her parents just sat there! There was no way she would have made it to the loo so I ran over with the bin from my bar and instead of puking in to the bin the poor kid turned her head towards a table of four and let go. I was literally catching sick in my hands so it didn't land on this woman just trying to eat her lunch.
Her parents still did nothing, just carried on sitting there with their mouths hanging open. So I held the bin up under her chin and helped her to the bathroom. Finally her mum came in to help the poor girl and I returned to absolute chaos in the restaurant.
I got everything cleaned up, the vomit family came to pay their bill and asked for the gratuity to be removed. I don't ever expect tips, the gratuity is added to the bill automatically, I have no problem removing it normally but when I have literally just caught your child's vomit in my bare hands I think leaving that 10% tip is the least you can do. They didn't even say thank you.

Then today I have a table of 12 in my section, 8 adults and 4 children. They're enjoying their main courses when all of a sudden they stand up at once and start getting ready to leave, very suspicious behaviour. I start walking over when one of the mum's comes rushing up to me and tells me, in a very jolly manner, that one her of her children has just vomited a little bit but it's fine because she caught it on her plate and they just want to pay the bill and get the child home. I hand her over to another waitress to sort the bill and go over to their table.
She definitely managed to catch the vomit on her plate. And 6 other plates. It's in some glasses, on a cushion, and in the flowers. Oh, and the floor! There is no way that much sick came from one child. So, once again, I am left to clean up vomit. I have to give my customers to the other servers and close that section to deal with it all.
While I'm cleaning the waitress who dealt with their bill comes over to tell me that they removed the gratuity and also demanded a 50% discount since they didn't get to finish their meals before their child was sick. When that was refused they made a complaint that I had pulled a face and given a disgusted look and I should be more cheerful.

There is, of course, the knock-on effect of other customers being unhappy and complaining (understandable) and wanting discounts on their bills etc.

I have two children. We eat out often. If one of them were to be sick then I'd be cleaning it up myself and if for some reason I couldn't then I would be apologising to every staff member and customer nearby then I'd leave a huge tip.

YABU - Minimum wage waiting staff should clean up vomit without complaining.

YANBU - Of course I'd clean up my child's vomit and if I couldn't then I'd make sure the staff knew how grateful I am for their help.

This gives me hospo flashbacks. The worst groups for me were the bougie mummy groups who came for meet-ups on Sundays and left a disgusting mess every fucking time.

There's really no preparing for it - he would be sick with no warning. The only thing we could do was leave in tears as quickly as possible! No we didn't eat out much, but sometimes you have no choice. Lots of ablist comments here.

I would go out of my way to help nice folks like you, who make an effort and apologise. The vomit wouldn't even bother me! It's the sheer entitlement of some people that is absolutely rage-inducing.

It was based on this comment: "Many families come here expecting chicken nuggets and pasta but we just don't serve that and so you get children that are already stuffed to the brim with sweets, ice cream etc. because they are on holiday and then they are not used to rich food and so they end up with upset stomachs."

I took that to mean that many families come to your restaurant expecting bland food, don't get it, and many children end up with upset stomachs. Thanks for clarifying that isn't actually the case, and only a couple of children have been ill by exception.

Your child had a condition which made her vomit. Why would you not be prepared with appropriate vessels, rather than rely on getting her out, or catching in a sun hat?
These situations with no preparation seem to be repeated. Just be prepared and prevent it ruin other people's experience.

That must have been a terrible time but you have come quite far from your original comment in your follow up ones tbf. In any event the staff don’t know any of that and they are the ones clearing up. It’s not your son’s fault but it’s not fair on them either.

Oh my god, yes. The last place I worked was very popular with instagram influencer mums. They would take endless amounts of selfies around the (very beautiful) restaurant, let their children throw food around, run about everywhere, scream and cry and so on while they posed and pouted and ignored them.

In fact, there was one particular mumfluencer who would often try to make the waiting staff parent her children! She would say things like "The lady is coming to shout at you now! She's so angry with you!" just bullshit like that and we would all just be like WTF?

And yes, the mess they leave is fucking awful. Shameful even. They must never have eaten even a crumb of food, just smeared it all over the sofas and floor.

It is not a list to expect people to be adequately prepared to deal with these situations, especially when they know it is a possibility. I do it myself as the last thing I'd want is to impose on other people, or ruin their day.

*ableist!

Oh, I do hope that he got something extra for it! He certainly deserved it! We would have given him a massive tip, but we were in a country where staff are strictly not allowed to accept tips, so I just made a point of telling the front office manager how lovely he had been. It wasn't just that the fact that he cleared it up, it was that he was so very sweet about it.

Yanbu OP 💐

I was routinely car sick as a child. My parents always had an empty plastic container in the back seat for me to throw up into, so at least they were prepared!

"I literally clamped my hand over her mouth but
Very sadly a bit landed in a woman’s shoes. "

Please never clamp your hand over someone's mouth when they're being sick!

I apologise for not being clearer. Lots of families will just not bother once they realise we don't serve nuggets or fish and chips but then you also get some who will come in anyway so the adults can eat and you'll see the kids sat at the table, barely touching their £15 meal and then when you clear the table and ask if everything was to their liking the parents will say like "Oh, little Johnny isn't used to sea bream crudo and quisquillas with mussel butter and sea fennel" and little Johnny is sat there looking a bit green because he hates seafood and is now starving hungry because he didn't get his nuggets.

Disgraceful! The venue should have tagged them in a video of the mess on insta. Bet that would shut them right up

Well tbh @DoughnutDreams we did carry sick bags and wipes but both times in this case we didn't have time to react to get them out of our bag. Maybe we should've had them more accessible I suppose but we didn't. Also both times it happened she hadn't been sick for a few weeks and we were probably being stupidly optimistic .

Like I say we did carry sick bags and wipes and hand sanitiser. We had a bowl under the buggy and in the car and we tried not to do anything which caused the likelihood of vomit to increase when we were out in public (eg avoided gaggy foods, didn't let her drink too much, no running around before or after eating) but yes, those two times we fucked up.

It happened to me once and I insisted on cleaning it all up myself and sanitised it all after, too. All whilst apologising profusely, repeatedly

Maybe every table should come with a bucket if vomit is that much of an issue.

I worked bussing tables on my way up to night manager, and yes have had to clean vomit. Never two days in a row though. I never would expect customers to clean it though. Usually you immediately move the party to a fresh table so they can get away from the vomit. Then you get cleaning if a busser, or get bussers in if you’re higher up (wait staff, host, manager). If you’re higher up, you assist the parents with the child and express appropriate concern and reassure them. We used to have a gift shop type thing and would even offer them a free T-shirt so the child could have something clean to wear. We always had a stock of free baby wipes and such in the toilets too. But we were a family friendly restaurant. I’ve never had a party refuse gratuity or demand a discount over an accident.

I think you might have dismissed a touch of food poisoning too easily. You don’t look at what other adults have eaten at the same table, you look to see whether there is a common food among those that got sick. So if both children had that hot chocolate made with the same whipped cream or carton of milk- that’s your food poisoning ground zero. It won’t be the fish dish their mum shared with them. But as you say, that’s probably above your pay grade and best to leave to your manager to investigate.

Thankfully, this has never happened to us in a restaurant, but on holiday last year, DS was sick in a taxi on our way to the airport. He doesn't have any previous history of car sickness, and I still shudder at the memory of trying to catch it in a water bottle!

When we stopped at the airport, the guy driving seemed genuinely surprised that I'd cleaned it up and offered to pay extra. We left a significant tip, but I remember thinking what kind of people does this guy usually encounter?

YANBU.

Very good point..a child can aspirate the vomit into their lungs and then they end up with septic pneumonia in the hospital.

When I was a teenager I worked in a small local cinema when the first Harry Potter film came out, so it was packed with kids, all filling up on sweets and fizzy pop. Right before the end of a fully booked screening, a mother and child ran out of the screen - the child projectile vomiting everywhere out, I mean literally 2 minutes before the other 100+ patrons were due to exit the screen (and walk right through it) I had 2 other ushers 1 dealing with customers for the next screening at the very busy bar, and the other waiting inside to collect rubbish from the screen, and when I said to the mother "I'm really sorry I'm going to have to ask you to help me clean this up" she was LIVID. Wrote to the local paper about me and everything. That's the one and only time I ever made front page news (nearly got the sack for that!).

Mad. Are you in the US or from an American background? There aren’t really bussers in restaurants in the UK. Wait staff clear tables here or in fast food type restaurants they are self clearing. Also there is a much lower incidence of food poisoning in the UK vs US due to higher food safety regulations, this was one of the big points highlighted during brexit. There is nothing to indicate any fault on the part of the restaurant in the OP’s posts.

I have no idea what a busser is nor have I ever seen a restaurant with a gift shop.

No, I don't think my restaurant is at fault, there is no indication of that. In my comments I was just trying to find a possible reason but really I don't think there needs to be one. You don't need to read even half of the comments on this post to see that kids will puke with no cause and no warning. No rhyme or reason to these incidents, just unfortunate coincidence, made that much worse by shitty parents. Your ridiculous bucket comment is uncalled for.

I don't know how anyone can turn around and comment that these two events were my fault and that I'm unreasonable for being disgusted and annoyed at how rude these families were!

It frankly probably is norovirus. I got it at the same time I caught covid. I thought I was having long covid and super terrified. Called my doctor and he said all his calls were about covid and norovirus. He said everyone, everyone has been throwing up this month. I tested positive for the dreaded disease. I vomited for another week but took comfort in knowing it was not long covid. Somehow daughter and husband avoided it thank the stars!

It's very easy to read some of the messages in this thread in a scottish accent.