No children in pub after 5pm

[SweetSouls]

My local banned children after 7pm a few years ago.

This seemed unnecessary to me, but I suppose that's after 'bed time' so I could sort of see the logic. Adult time etc.

On Saturday I went to stop there for a drink in the afternoon, and they have now banned children after 5pm.

This seems very odd to me given it's an area that people move to with their families. It's not some town centre boozer, it's surrounded by housing.

Is this just not terrible business? I do not get it at all.

It was almost empty, incidentally, at 5.15 on a Saturday afternoon.

I think it depends on the setting. There are some pubs where is more food and family orientated and others that are more geared to drinking. Its not the best place after certain hours.

Children can be an awful nuisance in pubs so I don't blame pubs from banning them. Folk go to pubs to escape hassle.

People on the continent dine in restaurants with their children, not in pubs.

These threads always descend into the "in Spain/Italy/France children are very welcome everywhere..." type arguments.

People seem to forget that they're almost always seeing this from the perspective of holiday resorts, not run-of-the mill towns and villages.

I constantly travel Europe and much further afield on business and I certainly don't see bars full of children across Europe. Go to a town outside the coastal resorts in Spain and you barely see children in bars at all.

5:15pm isn’t dinner time yet. It does seem early but from 6pm they obviously just want adult dining which is fair enough. Looks like they are happy with them there fir lunch, 5pm is that middle time, or post work drinks.

Is the dining space small or often full? Children aren’t profitable I’m afraid. They don’t eat much and don’t drink alcohol. Seats filled with adults are more profitable.

It’s an establishment that makes money selling alcohol. Kids are not the appropriate clients to be targeting and their presence puts people off.

go to a restaurant / park / soft play.

I’ve lived in all the countries you mentioned and a couple more and it’s not a myth it happens , just a few days ago we went out for dinner in Portugal and stayed up until midnight and lots if families where still there including ones with babies

In a bar or restaurant?

Find a family friendly one or go to a restaurant? Most people hate kids in pubs. I can't remember the last time I saw children in a pub past lunchtime, so I think the 5pm rule is fine.

Yes in my experience in Portugal proper local bars in villages & towns are full of mostly men drinking and watching football. No food is served at all

To be honest though, most other European countries seem to parent their children better, and raise them to behave in settings where there’s drink and food being consumed. When abroad, I can always tell the nationality of those kids running riot around the dining tables versus the ones sitting politely and nicely at the table. 99% of the time the badly parented ones belong to the Brits I’m afraid.

Good for them. I'd actively seek them out for afterwork drinks or a night out with my husband!

The number of kids I see running around tables in pubs while staff are trying to carry food is astonishing. I can totally see this being an insurance issue.

Yes my favourite part of the debate -all European children sit still, behave impeccably and eat everything!

Years of travel in Europe (including working in restaurants) I can safely say they are kids! Often in feral holiday mode, often snot/ice cream covered, usually stuffing chips down their faces by the pool, moaning at the dinner table, on Ipads, asleep in pushchairs and screeching like banshees - honestly children don't have some genetic difference because they (luckily) have red passports!

I think people are getting confused with restaurants that have a bar and actual pubs that don't serve food in the evenings.

a RESTAURANT near me has a no children under 7 after 5pm rule. Which isn't even dinnertime! they've lost a good few hundred ££ worth of custom from I and my extended family now. It's in a family friendly seaside town as well. tragic.

The pub is entitled to pitch at whatever custom they want, within the law. They've no obligation to provide you with your preferred option OP, and the same is equally true for the people in the thread who think pubs should be adult only.

Well therein lies the rub, a fair few people think that anywhere they choose to go does have the obligation to provide them with their preferred option - even if it's not offered by that venue.

Rather than find somewhere that does cater to
their preference, people want to go anywhere and have their preference catered to regardless, and clearly think they have the right to demand this, or threads like this wouldn't exist.

Glad to hear it.

TBF they've probably gained some adult custom to balance it out.

Are we supposed to think it's admirable for young children to be up at nearly midnight? Just because it's supposedly done 'on the continent'?

Works for me; I'm getting sick and tired of those who seem to confuse "family friendly" with an invitation to let their kids behave exactly as they want and never mind anyone else

It would be different if they banned kids completely, but they already have the rest of the opening hours to climb, race and shriek, so it doesn't seem too much to ask that the rest of us get a bit of peace in the evenings

Same here except it was a bottle of Coke for me. That Coke and the crisps felt like such a treat! 😄

Sounds brilliant!

Perhaps it's an oddity of my pub going habits, but I never see children in pubs! (And I do go to quite a range, at different times.)

Plenty of adults in pubs are capable of being just an antisocial as children manage in other contexts.

Sadly they will have banned all because of the behaviour of a few

#teampub