Restaurants. Must I pay for a miserable experience?
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Why dont you give the child a telling?0
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Let them grow up in their own time.
They can do that at home until they have learnt how to behave.
My children were expected to behave properly when out and about.
Your children are perhaps a blessing to you Bris and we are all fine seeing your children but not if they are bawling.
Parents should have taken the child outside/loos and calmed it down.0 -
If you want to keep the emotions out of it then legally speaking you have no redress with a restaurant.
Take it as a simple contract. You go to a pub or wherever and you request 1x Steak. The waiter says that item is £x and you accept or decline that. This forms your contract. For the price of £x you expect to get 1x Steak.
At no point was the environment or any other terms of the contract discussed as such you cannot ex post facto seek to change the terms nor can you claim redress on a term that was never agreed to.
IF you went in and had a written contract (or legally speaking verbal though harder to prove) that said "1X Steak for £x and the environment shall be free of screaming children" and that was not met, you would have cause for redress on the broken contract term. Though of course the restaurant has no obligation to accept that contract and so doesn't have to serve you.0 -
Why are you blaming the kids . . . and the restaurant, when it's the parents at fault?
No, you can't have free meals.0 -
OP I hear you. People who don't control their brats when in a public place are an absolute menace. I'm fairly sure the people on this thread saying you should put up with them are talking out of their backsides, (as usual).
Do what I do:
Ask to be moved.
If they can't or won't comply with your request then either leave at that point or finish your meal then write to let them know why you had a bad experience there.
I've been invited back to more than one place when I've had a bad experience, (not always caused by brats), and always received a decent discount and apologies from the owners when I have.
If I don't receive a reply, (doesn't have to be positive), then my custom there has finished.
Whatever you do don't do trip advisor.Pants0 -
If we can keep emotive stuff out of it... I'm trying to get at the legality. If I've looked forward to a special meal out and the behaviour of another group in a restaurant ruins it (and I've gone home in tears more than once) am I not entitled to some form of redress?
Not if you sat and ate the meal. You had the opportunity to cancel your order and leave, you chose to stay and eat, You have to pay for the food you ate, it's as simple as that.Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence and face your future without fear0 -
If it's that bad, why not leave before ordering your food?
Then drink up, and pay the bill without a tip?0 -
The screaming child was never me, because I wasn't taken to restaurants when I was that sort of age. My parents had too much regard for other peoples' comfort.
I agree 100% with the OP on both these points.
My parents would have been (rightly) embarrassed and mortified if my behaviour as a child had affected other people's enjoyment of a meal out. If I was too young to be trusted to behave properly I did not join them.
As parents no longer care about this, we tend to avoid "restaurants" where there are likely to be children running amok.0 -
The screaming child was never me, because I wasn't taken to restaurants when I was that sort of age. My parents had too much regard for other peoples' comfort.
I guess your parents took the view that 'children should be seen but not heard'?
I don't think its reasonable or healthy to expect kids to be locked away!
Personally I frequent family friendly restaurants and pubs quite a bit. I've never had a problem with kids running around. A bit of patience and tolerance seems to work just fine for me.
If you take that traditionally British approach of complaining about absolutely everything, or you start tutting at people, you are going to end up miserable.
If you visit a family friendly restaurant or a pub in the daytime you've got to accept that kids will be present, and that kids will be kids.0 -
steampowered wrote: »That screaming child was you once.
A bit of patience and tolerance is called for.
No - it was never me.
Then get a babysitter or family member to look after the kid. I would not impose on other's patience and tolerance - they may not have any and why should you assume they have?0
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