1: Food
2:Service
3: Ambiance/setting/vibe
Some of my best meals have been in Mom & Pop joints in strip malls in the burbs, but if I’m in a beach town I always try to pick a place with a great view and hopefully the food and service will match.
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That’s worthy of another thread!
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Yeah. Our (formerly) favorite Sichuan place for my chili heads jour fixe is about as bare bones as it gets. Total hole in the wall, and the ‘service’ took some getting used to in the early days.
But the food was the best Sichuan in town. SOB.
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Here ya be:
Young children in restaurants is indeed a topic worthy of its own thread! I looked at the Fog House menu which looks perfectly serviceable and good for a low stress meetup for a family with young child/children. Relatives are hard to please!
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I found this old thread about bringing kids to restaurants.
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Interestingly, my mind blowing grouper sandwich in Florida, in a beach town, was at a mom and pop strip plaza, and my favourite tiki bar in Kauai was in a strip plaza with no view. We were on a long drive from New Smyrna to Miami, so we just pulled off the interstate to try this restaurant a Chowhound recommended, then got back on the road to meet my cousin for dinner in Miami. I never saw any of the beaches near Ft Lauderdale and Hollywood, when though we stopped near there for lunch.
I mix it up with mom and pops and restaurants with a view when travelling, too.
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I am someone who tends to plan ahead and tries to accomodate, so…that was a little annoying. LOL. They’re fussy. LOL. They now live in Basel, Switzerland. I have no idea when I’ll see them again.
I was taken to a fair number of nicer restaurants as a kid. We ate out on Sunday nights when I was little. I think some children behave in restaurants, and some do not.
I rarely went to places that offered children’s menus. That seemed to become more of thing in the mid 1980s.
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And I think some of their parents behave and some do not.
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It’s a tricky call to make when you have a young kid in the mix. I never took my son to a very fancy restaurant when he was very young, it was just too much of a gamble. He was a pretty easy kid overall, but he has had 3 epic meltdowns as a toddler and all of those happened in a restaurant (casual) - as soon as it was clear he was having a tantrum I tucked him under my arm and walked out. Nobody deserves to have their meal ruined by a screaming kid.
We visited Boston when he was only 8 months old. We were very keen to dine at Hungry Mother. We walked a very long distance to get there and he was fast asleep in his stroller by the time we arrived. The restaurant staff were very nice about letting us park the stroller at our table and he slept like a log while we enjoyed a great meal. In hindsight we were extremely lucky. He also slept like a log through a dinner at an extremely loud and touristy Mexican restaurant in Manhattan on the same trip (my friend chose the restaurant), not waking even when a mariachi band turned up at our table.
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And some of those little kids who don’t behave grow up to be parents (who still don’t behave). I believe in the basic personality type being formed by age 4.
Some of my Millenial cousins were absolute brats as children, in restaurants, and that hasn’t changed as they push 40. I have to work around their traits and behaviour, when we have family gatherings.
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In my experience, in Canada and the States, I have usually found Mexican, Greek, Italian, Indian, and Chinese restaurants to be a little more accepting of babies and children as guests, and even welcome them. I love a restaurant where the staff are happy to see children come eat.
It depends on the type of restaurant and it’s typical client base, of course, and probably the region, as well.
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When my youngest was 4 he stuck a french fry in his nose to make people laugh. And then he ran around the restaurant showing everybody. And he’s still doing that as a 26 year old.
Nah. He is supremely polite and a wonderfully mannered young man. Small sample size, I know, but he is not doomed to any pattern of behavior from childhood.
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I travel to Spain at least once a year. I’ve sometimes seen badly behaved British children in restaurants. I’ve never see a Spanish child behaving badly. I think it may be cultural thing, relating to attitudes towards restaurants and restaurant visiting
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Agree. Also, parenting styles and discipline differ in various cultures. I’m guessing Spanish parents might be more strict in some ways.
One thing I cannot stand in restaurants is TVs. There used to be a local restaurant that used to have at least 3 or 4 large screen TVs in the dining-room, placed such that they were visible to the whole room, and they were always tuned to a sports channel. A TV says “sports bar” to me, not “fine dining”, which it advertised itself as.
The meals were mediocre; think unpeeled tree trunk-size asparagus, and veggies floating (some submerged) in a nondescript brown sauce. A favorite niece worked there, so I went there a few times just to please her.
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When I was working for a company HQ’d in Philadelphia, Double Knot was one of our favorite restaurants to go to when coworkers and I had a work trip. 
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Those are family friendly cultures and if the restaurant serves family style, even more so. Seems normal to see kids around.
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We actually went back for our final meal in Philly! Food’s pretty good 
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My immediate reaction is to say “food” but as I think about it and think about my “real” behaviors…I’m at a loss of saying any one is more important than another.
There are places I go because of the location alone - even though I don’t particularly like the food and the service is horrible…I’m looking at you Mexican restaurant that has an incredible outdoor patio overlooking the river that is so nice on a beautiful sunny day. But you won’t find me there any other time. (not sure this counts as “design” as the original article talks about it though).
There are places I go because the people who work there (service) are so incredible. The food is fine but the physical restaurant is pretty awful. I go every once in a while just to say “hi” and sometimes I feel like that is why everyone else is there too.
I honestly can’t think of a single place where I go because the food is great but I can’t stand the service or ambiance.
So I’m going to have to do some real behavioral analysis to answer this one correctly I think.
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