Earlybird Special

Roper — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Get this: on Friday night, we went out to dinner with the girls, and it was actually quite tolerable. "Enjoyable" would be a stretch, but we didn't leave feeling like we'd just undergone some kind of military stress test. (As has happened on many a past restaurant outing, as longtime readers will recall.) And we'd gotten to eat out on a Friday night without having to factor the price of a babysitter into the equation. We even ordered drinks! We felt downright European.

The main reason it worked is because it was 6:15, and there was basically no one else in the restaurant -- just one other table of people on the other side of the room, and a few people at the bar, including and older couple who beamed and waved at the girls the whole time. Either they really liked little kids, they were happily snookered, or some combination of both. So we didn't feel *too* terrible and mortified each time Elsa screamed I WANT MORE ICE! or I WANT SOME OF DAT! or WOW, I LIKE CUCUMBAS, MOMMY!!!! I WANT SOME MORE! (The girl loves food. All of it. Loudly. She's like Dom Deluise reincarnated in the body of blond two-and-a-half year old girl.)

Would you attempt to take this child out to a crowded restaurant?

Also key to our success was the fact that this restaurant -- while good (if not great) doesn't have a big following for dinner. (Try to go there for a weekend breakfast or brunch, though, and you'll end up standing outside in line with hungover Tufts students and twenty-somethings for 45 minutes before you get a table, and then are rushed back out while you've still got eggs in your mouth.)

I'm sure there are other affordable (but a cut above fast food) restaurants in the area that would work with the girls if we went early. It's weird; back when we did such things as "eat out" (I think that's what it's called?) on a more regular basis, we always went at seven o'clock or later, when the joints were full of people. (Did I sound like a gangster just then?) But at six o'clock, or even earlier, they may well be family-friendly -- i.e., sparsely populated. I can think of a few off the top of my head, one of wich actually offers an earlybird special, w. half-price entrees.

There's also a restaurant in Cambridge, Full Moon, (I've mentioned it here before) that caters very specifically to families, and has a little play area where kids can go and hang out while adults drink their wine and eat their things with arugula and goat cheese in them. But it's always very crowded, which ups the stress factor. You also end up having to referee toy disputes between your kids and other people's -- not fun. And ironically, I've never found the staff to be -- or at least seem -- particularly family-friendly. Not that I blame them. I couldn't STAND working in a crowded restaurant full of screaming kids and their distracted parents. I'm guessing they make good tips, because everyone feels sorry for them.

On the other hand, if you go to a non-family-specific restaurant at 5:30 or 6:00 pm, you can get fawned over by not-yet-exhausted waiters and busboys (We got free plates of fresh fruit for the girls on Friday night!), smiled at by the sixtysomething early-birders at the bar, and laugh -- instead of stress -- when your daughter starts screaming about cucumbers. It's not a bad way to kick off your weekend.

Now, if we could just figure out how to spend yet another rainy afternoon without resorting (immediately) to television... This weather blows. Hope it actually feels like summer for at least some of you out there....

Subscribe to this blog and get notified each time a new post is published.

Baby Squared : eating out with toddlers

Earlybird Special