Child only area in restaurant- discriminatory?

[Buyalot]

I’ve returned from a carvery lunch with DH and DD (14 months).

On arrival, despite there being a lot of seats spare in every area, we were told we had to be seated in the dedicated children’s area - an
absolute racket with soft play etc.

AIBU to find this ridiculous?

Sounds great. My kind of carvery.

Appreciate the mix of views! It was a nice roast, just the policy striked me as odd.

I have a 16month old and I love this. I’d feel much more relaxed in there amongst the carnage with her not disturbing anyone if she has abit of an outburst. It’s a great idea

So presumably, you wouldn’t choose to dine in a place like this then.

I think it's because of servicing alcohol.

Its annoying if your child isn't mobile but at 14 months they are usually mobile

Why not?

Having a disability and asking for consideration to sit X is perfectly ok

This sounds great to me and I have an 18 month old! Don’t have to worry about him disrupting anyone else’s meal when he decides he doesn’t want to sit nicely in the highchair. Perhaps your child hasn’t got to that stage yet!

Because the OP said that people with children were sat in a specific area.
If the OP then states that they’d rather sit in a different part of the restaurant with their quieter child then I presume that would be accommodated.
The crux of the OP was regarding noisy toddlers/children being close to the play area.
Jeez. Why does everyone need to find the tiniest loophole and create an issue out of it?

Probably because your child is so young and more likely to disturb other diners.We recently went to a carvery with ds 11 and said we want to sit away from the soft play and thankfully they sat us at the other end of the pub.

Sounds good to me!

Sounds like a great idea to me. I don't see how it could be considered discrimination.

Sounds awful. Many 14-month-olds are lovely and quiet! On the other hand can restaurants start having segregated spaces for the noisy adults please?

If they had an adults only area and sat all the adult dining without children in one area I doubt you'd have an issue with it even though it's the same thing.

Mix of views 😂

It's pretty unanimously against you!

At least you came back.

I was child free and wouldn't be eating before 7.30pm so having children in restaurants didn't bother me....because they weren't there lol

Lead me to it! I've lost count of how many pubs I've left saying 'never again!' because the eating area was full of unsupervised children.

Do you think that areas dedicated to children existing at all is wrong, or do you think you are okay but you personally shouldn't be expected to sit in them?

If there were two absolutely identical restaurants (same menu, location, etc) but one had a designated area for children to keep them separate, I would choose that one every single time.

I think some (most) parents are utterly oblivious to how loud and disruptive their little angels can be. Also, it makes perfect sense to keep the kids sat near the soft play, instead of having them barrelling back and forth through the restaurant.

Not if it’s against the policy though. They are still a child!

DS is autistic and wouldn’t have coped with it, we would pick somewhere he would. That’s not discrimination against him it’s common sense.

😂

Regarding the question "Is this discriminatory?"

Yes, it is. It shows the restaurant owners' ability to discriminate between adults dining with their small children and adults who prefer to dine without children all round them.

Discrimination is not always wrong; sometimes what it means is being able to tell the difference between two things without feeling obliged to judge one to be bad and the other good. For instance, someone with a particular form of colour-blindness (tritanomaly), may be unable to discriminate between blue and yellow. Most of us can discriminate between the two colours, and we are not wrong and nasty for being able to do this.

Guessing it’s a framhouse inn. When our kids were older, I would add a note that I wanted to be further away from the play area but still in the family area. They are older teens now so we can sit in the none family area again. It makes sense to keep all the kids / families together tbh.

It's not adults who prefer to dine without children around them..... It may be the prefence but you can't generalise all. Because op isn't one of them

If you'd booked and only found this when you arrived I think you'd have a legitimate gripe. But if you're turn up and go there are plenty of other eateries.

That said other than a place in Scotland where non residents in the hotel were, contrary to the sign outside, anything but welcome we never had a problem with ours.

Neither does our daughter and grandson.

I'd hazard a guess the problem is kids who are not kept engaged at table and/or once mobile are not prevented from running wild.

Sounds like a great idea.

If you don’t like it pick another restaurant.