My thoughts? If this restaurant was in The Incorporated Swamp, it'd be my pick for date night every chance we got.
Don't get me wrong, I take my children to restaurants. However, I am quite choosy as to which ones I take them to. If it has a children's menu, then I will bring my children. If it doesn't, I'll visit them some other time.
Of course there are exceptions. E and I took A and a friend of mine from college to a Very Nice Restaurant downtown when A was 3 months old. However, we went kinda late-ish and I knew her well enough to know she would sleep through dinner (A, not my friend). Would I take her back to the same restaurant at 19 months old? Uh, no.
But why, you may ask, don't you parent your children? Of course I do. But no matter who many times I tell them to quit hollerin (A) or to not sing Bon Jovi at the table (S), my children are completely autonomous creatures who will do whatever they want, regardless of threats of harm to their cushy way of life. Which is why I take them places where their behavior and my threats of harm will be tolerated a little more.
And you know, sometimes, when I have a date night without children, sometimes I want to spend it.... without ANY children. Most of the time I'm content to dine sans kids at MY table. I have no problem with the infant cooing in their carrier at the next table, the preschooler eating fish sticks across the restaurant. But sometimes, it's nice to go somewhere where the only "children" are the sulky teenagers who are being "forced" to eat with their terminally uncool parents.
And that doesn't make me a bad parent.
I was surprised that baby could sleep through the live band playing! I totally could have slept too probably, thanks to still being whacked out on Xanax from the flight. :-P Haha It was a very nice place though (and seriously, that lasagna could have fed all 3 of us...and a few other tables too). I agree w/ you about kids and restaurants. My best friend doesn't eat out w/ her kids much, because they will do whatever they want no matter what she and her husband say, and she'd rather not have to deal w/ the possible tantrums that might arise. Also, she had a bad experience when her oldest (now 8) was a baby. He was a good baby and didn't usually cause a fuss in public. They were eating at a child-friendly place after church one day (had a kids menu, high chairs etc), and Kota was just doing usual baby things...jabbering away or something, but not loudly, not crying/screaming/throwing objects. Then some old lady came by them and loudly commented on how babies shouldn't be brought to restaurants, and they were so loud and disruptive, and parents never discipline or keep their kids quiet. Kids can be rude, but sometimes adults are far worse...
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