At what age can you safely take your kid to a restaurant? One guy says six years. In fact he's enforcing that idea at a restaurant that's banned children whether they're screaming or quiet. McDain's Restaurant, which boasts its crab cakes are “The Best Around — Period,” is slaughtering the kid contingent. They're too noisy.
The restaurant's now banned the toddler crowd at its Monroeville, Pennsylvania location that's not too far from Pittsburgh. Its seems customers are irritated and that, in turn, makes for an irritated owner -- when screaming, crying, whining or noisy children turn into lost profits.
The guy who owns the restaurant, Mike Vuick, also owns the golf course. And he's doing things his way. Says Vuick: "There's nothing wrong with babies but, the fact is, you can't control their volume. And there may be restaurants that prefer to cater to such things -- not here."
The golf course has been around 22 years, the restaurant in existence for nearly a decade -- and owner Vuick says kids have become an increasing problem. Or, rather, their parents have become the issue. But it's hard to ban adults.They're the ones that pay.
In a very tactful summation of the scenario, the McDain's Restaurant owner says he doesn't hate kids: “Parents have gradually diminished their cooperation.”
Basically there's been a lot of customer complaints -- and the owner's obviously tired of dealing with it.
“This is a three-part issue," says Vuick. "One is the increasing number of small babies that can’t be controlled. They can’t be quiet and really they can’t be expected to.” He says the kindergarten crowd has “shown increasingly poor manners.” And the McDain's guy says parents “act like we’re the ones being offensive” when staff asks them to help their children simmer down.
The McDain’s Restaurant owner in Pennsylvania isn't too concerned about losing customers. He describes the spot as “upscale casual” and says he's not sure why customers would even want to bring kids to the eatery. “This is a very genteel, quiet place. Very adult. We have 68 seats here, and 24 of them are in the bar,” says Vuick. “If I had children of these ages I would never contemplate taking them to this place.”
It's all legal: McDain's Restaurant isn't discriminating against anyone based on all the standard stuff, like race, religion, gender or same-sex couples. Legally in Pennsylvania, he's good to go.
So are parents upset? There's a few expressing thoughts between irritation and outrage -- though it's hard to tell whether they were ever patrons of McDain's Restaurant at all, or just want something to talk about. No one like's being barred -- even when they're not customers.
The McDain's owner says he had over 400 e-mails in his inbox last week, most of which were a form of 'thank you'.
One customer with a 13-month old baby is ticked, a woman who expressed some serious offense that her year-old child is banned from joining her at the restaurant. She calls the policy "ignorant" -- a term probably not far removed from what the McDain's owner believes true of certain parents. Of all the forms of kids and their corresponding ages, babies are probably lowest on Vuick's list.
The McDain's man sums it up best in a single sentence: “You know, their [patrons'] child — maybe as it should be — is the center of their universe. But they [parents] don't realize it's not the center of the universe."
Hold the applause.