rant: fine dining

[Freed Roger]

Plenty of places to go still to get a pint with your kid and everybody stays happy.

???????

Don't alert the authorities. sounds worse than what it is. Breweries are usually kid-friendly. outdoor spaces. etc. My kid wasn't with me, but at 2nd Shift brewery, a bunch of small kids were there. One behind the bar.

[Freed Roger]

just a reminder - the younguns are always welcome at The FeedLot ™. Under 12 eat free with the purchase of an adult double all you can eat special. We do charge 2.99 for a soft drink -unlimited free refills for the little buckaroos. Get them jacked up on Mello Yello and send them off to roll around in our FreedomLand Playlot™ ( no staph infections yet!) while you get yourself a fresh plate and double helpings.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

http://www.chicagomag.com/dining-drinki ... leaf-kids/

This guy's rant is complete crap. I'm someone who's taken my young kid to many a drinking establishment -just use common sense on it. Sounds like that bar is small - they don't have room in the place or on the menu for accommodating kids.

That's the link buried last page in my rant. Hopleaf has a big back room, lots of tables, good space. The space thing is not about the kids. The owner of Hopleaf gave a very good explanation on Facebook for why he has that policy. Let me see if I can find it.....here we go...with a spoiler for length.

[SHOW]

I have to weigh in of course since Hopleaf is my bar and the policy is mine. Hopleaf has always been a bar. It is our name; The Hopleaf Bar. Not Cafe Hopleaf or the Hopleaf Restaurant. Our mission is not to run a restaurant that also serves beer, wine and spirits. Our concept from day one has been to serve adult beverages to adults in the company of other adults. Yes, we serve food. Our food is often marinaded in beer, steamed and braised in beer and meant to be accompanied with beer, wine or cider. There are plenty of family friendly places that serve alcohol along with food. We encourage drinking eating and conversation. Often the conversation is freewheeling. I remember working in a family friendly place years ago where a group in one booth were chastised by a party with children in the next booth for their language. It stifled the adult party's conversation. We don't have high chairs, TV's, or a kid friendly menu.

Places that are family friendly design their places around that. Wider aisles, places to put strollers, and safety features. Our open mezzanines, stairways, basement restrooms, and unprotected wood stove would have to be changed or closed in. Why would we do that when serving children was never in our business plan?

We have always had some who have complained about the policy. However, they have been vastly outnumbered by those who support it, including many parents. Many parents who've hired a baby sitter for a date night out appreciate that they will be in an adult venue without crying infants, temper tantrums or kids running in the aisles. Some kids behave, some don't. We don't want to be in the position of sorting them out.

Then there is the issue of what kids to let in. Infants but not toddlers, teens but not babies, or over 12, or 16 or 18. Whatever we chose, there will be even more controversy. And since tavern licenses are subject to more scrutiny and sting operations than "incidental" licenses, the last thing we want is teens to 20 year old's who will try their best to have a drink, often with parents blessing. OK at home, not in a licensed bar or restaurant. Our license is at stake. With 7 different service areas, it is impossible to monitor everyplace to ensure that someone's 19 year old isn't sharing mom's wine.

I have also worked at places that stipulated no minors after 5 or 6 PM. Every night we'd have a problem with people not done eating or who arrives at 15 minutes before or people who saw someone else's kids at a table finishing up and wondered why their kids were not welcome. It is a can of worms.
One thing that I noted about places that allow kids is that not only do the tables with kids not drink much, the tables around them drank less too. It throws off the adult drinking atmosphere. Kid's tables wind up with more food on the floor, broken glasses and more cleanup time. Kids tables have lower check averages. We are a business. We want the real estate of our tables and chairs to be filled with people who drink. Beer, wine and spirit sales subsidize our kitchen. Since we spend more for our foodstuffs because we offer sustainable agriculture products, often organic, pasture raised, and local, we need to sell beer, wine and spirits where the profit is. Kid friendly places often sell pizza, pasta, burgers, or non house made foods that are more profitable.

Bottom line: We believe there should be some places that are for adults to be in the company of adults. Adult beverages, food and conversation. Adult atmosphere. Our tavern license allows us to be an adult venue. Most licensed establishments had an "incidental" license that in theory means that selling alcohol is secondary to their main purpose, be it selling food, being a bowling alley, music venue, theater or baseball stadium. We are a bar. One does not bring babies to the opera or the symphony. There are movies and plays that are inappropriate for minors. And bars and cocktail lounges are not for kids.
One last note: We don't hate kids. If you know about us, you know that we have donated a ton of money over the years to the local public elementary school that we "adopted" over ten years ago. Last year alone, we raised over $50,000 for Peirce School for programs for our local kids. Many of our customers send their kids to Peirce and they appreciate our "Kegs for Kid's" program. 100% of the revenue from one keg of beer on our menu every day goes to the school. We love kids. We can't wait for them to grow up and have a beer.........after they turn 21.

Good for that guy. Its mind bogglimg that he would have to do it in the forst place. Perhaps growing up around the bon air i just took for granted the policy, but i thought they were more common than not.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Related, is there anything worse than going out for a special occassiin and sitting next to a family of 5 with 3 kids two of which are under the age of 4. So goah damned loud. This happened to my wife and i one night. Then they sat a couple right next to us. Maybe 2 feet away at another 2 top and the ladies fakes breasteses were literally falling out of her skin tight one piece skirt thing that barely covered her ass. Lady belonged in Vegas at a club. That was miserable. Eventually they mived tables. Dony know if it was me giggling at the outfit when they sat down, the kids 6 feet away screaming or my wife telling me to not stare at the ladies breasts (which ftr i wasnt doing), but proba ly one of those things. Made fr a miserable night.

[themiddle54]

By and large, at least around here, people with young kids who eat out have a simple playbook.
1. make reservation for the minute the restaurant opens
2. arrive 3-5 minutes early
3. order quickly
4. eat like they just got out of a refugee camp, not bothering to come up for air or conversation
5. ask for the bill when 1/2way through entrees (there will be no desert)
6. pay bill and get outta Dodge before the baby explodes and the dinner rush has started

I like these guests. They want to go out and eat, but they're conscious of the fact that their child--especially a baby--could cause others to have a bad time. Generally, they are younger parents with kids 3 and under who are not too far removed from sitting childless in a restaurant and going "why the hell did that person bring their screaming toddler to dinner at 8pm on a Saturday?" The ones who bring their screaming toddler to dinner at 8pm on a Saturday...ugh. The epitome of entitlement. They ruin other guests' night when they're screaming right next to them. They take up a seat at the table that will generate zero revenue for the next 3 hours (these guests do not eat quickly, they linger). The kids make a huge mess in, around and under the table. They really should get a babysitter or stay at home. It's not like their [expletive] kid has anything to add to the dinner conversation anyway.

[tlombard]

I saw a message last night that Three Flags closed. I know they have been complaining about the Kingshighway closure but... I don't know. It really isn't that big of a deal to detour a few blocks. I live right there and it hasn't given me one bit of trouble. I'm probably wrong but I just don't think that it was the right type of place for the location. I think a different location would have done a lot better for them regardless of the road closure.

[lukethedrifter]

I saw a message last night that Three Flags closed. I know they have been complaining about the Kingshighway closure but... I don't know. It really isn't that big of a deal to detour a few blocks. I live right there and it hasn't given me one bit of trouble. I'm probably wrong but I just don't think that it was the right type of place for the location. I think a different location would have done a lot better for them regardless of the road closure.

I think you're right.



Re kids in restaurants, I thought it was important to teach my kid how to act in a restaurant and enjoyed taking her out. That said, totally understand places that don't want kids. Too many times I've been out with family or friends who can't or aren't interested in controlling their kids.

What sucks now is that she is 16 and otherwise great company out, its pizza and chicken tenders only.
I've failed.

[themiddle54]

I saw a message last night that Three Flags closed. I know they have been complaining about the Kingshighway closure but... I don't know. It really isn't that big of a deal to detour a few blocks. I live right there and it hasn't given me one bit of trouble. I'm probably wrong but I just don't think that it was the right type of place for the location. I think a different location would have done a lot better for them regardless of the road closure.

We live in a time when there are just way too many restaurants and the bubble is starting to pop. There will probably be a lot more closures in everyone's towns in the next few years. Location is one of the factors in opening a place, and it's a big one. I think that far too often investors and first-time owners (and some seasoned owners) don't check all the boxes. A place should be all of these:
1. the right concept
2. with the right people to execute the concept
3. in the right space
4. in the right location

If you're missing just one, you're toast. If you get the space and the people and the location right but screw up the concept, you're toast. If you get the right concept and people and a good building but in the wrong location, you're toast. If you have a good concept and space in a fine location but you don't have good people staffing it and executing the concept, you're toast--though you can rebound from this by turning over staff, but you have to do it quick or you're, y'know, toast. Blowing money on a flashy space in a good location but having a bad concept? Toast. You only need to miss on one of those four things, and you're toast. There are so many copycat upscale neighborhood restaurants in the cities now, with each smaller town like Nashville and Pittsburgh taking turns being America's Hottest Food City and then getting a glut of restaurants that don't check all four of those boxes, that the whole thing is going to fall apart soon enough.

[Freed Roger]

I saw a message last night that Three Flags closed. I know they have been complaining about the Kingshighway closure but... I don't know. It really isn't that big of a deal to detour a few blocks. I live right there and it hasn't given me one bit of trouble. I'm probably wrong but I just don't think that it was the right type of place for the location. I think a different location would have done a lot better for them regardless of the road closure.

You are familiar with the closure(s), operating from the inside. Countians like me can't remember where the closures are, hell, I can't even remember where the place is. It's all Downtown ( right drifter?).

Honestly, I was going to go back there a couple times, but scratched the plans because I didn't want to decipher how to get there. First time I remembered Kingshighway was closed, but my non-highway option (Southwest Ave past Schlafly Bworks was closed) Now Manchester is messed up. The only reason I went back a 2d time was because I was near to eat before going to 2nd Shift brewery.

So really everybody is right - probably not the right spot since it wasn't much of a neighborhood place, and needed bourgeois Countians to make it - and we wrote it off as Downtown construction zone.

[tlombard]

I have two more months of steadily declining cafeteria food to deal with at work now. Although it already started. Every few years the contract with whoever is running our cafeteria comes up and every few years somebody offers a better deal to us so we switch. You can tell it's about to happen when the cafeteria is increasingly running out of more and more things. That's been going on for a couple of months now. They are steadily cutting back on everything they order so that when the contract is up, they have no inventory left and it blows for us who eat in the cafeteria almost every day.

The new company will come in and suddenly the food will be way better. But only for awhile because eventually they will start cutting back too. It is an office building cafeteria. They hope they can get more business with higher quality offerings but it doesn't work. Of course the people who work for the old company will get let go when the contract is up. Thankfully the new company generally hires them and keeps them working the same building. I'm not a fan of a couple of the people working in our cafeteria (one is so slow and the other doesn't really speak English well and it can be difficult to get what you want at times) but I don't want any of them to lose their jobs. Maybe reassigned to another building but if it is fired or stay here, I'd rather them stay.

I hate this cycle.