Bars: kid friendly or adults only?

Having a kid, I try to be respectable of folks around me. We've been told on several accounts that our daughter is very mature for her age, which I take pride in. At the same time, she is 4, so she is still a kid. Bottom line, while she behaves herself in social situations for the most part, if she starts to get out of hand, we take a trip to the car or the bathroom and fix the issue. I can't stand it, when people let their kids just run crazy, be noisy, and have no respect for others around them. It's a huge pet peeve of mine, because it's not hard to have your kid under control or remove them from the situation. I see that as laziness.

 

My favorite beer place is an actual restaurant with a massive beer program that I love...my only issue is with kids taking up the very few (14 stools) at the bar while they and their parents wait for a table. There is a very loyal beer crowd that patronizes the spot and the stools are far more valuable to them with my butt on the stool than little rotten johnny's. Just sayin. It's kid friendly otherwise and I'm okay with that of course.

 

Maybe your kids can entertain/distract my kids, as we're often there around this time. I really haven't seen anyone object to kids at FH, outside of the rare (for there) spinster-yinzer, who has the perpetual "just smelled a fart" look on her face.

 

I take my daughter to certain bars/pubs for early dinner on occasion...but not the ones that folks are pounding down a few cold ones. We go to our local watering hole maybe once a month and if we are out and on the road, we may eat/drink at a nice sit down establishment for dinner as well. On a recent trip to Portland Oregon, she visited around 20 different breweries with us and not once was there a dirty look from any of the lumbersexuals/hipsters.

 

I think there should both exist places where children are welcome and where children are unwelcome.

It also makes a difference what time of day it is, and whether it's mainly a bar or if it's a 'bar and restaurant'. If a place is mainly a bar and the only food is crappy fried stuff or maybe terrible pizza, you probably shouldn't bring your children there anyway.

 

As a father of 2 it really comes down to parents being smart enough to make the right decision. But, you know, a lot of parents are not capable of that. I generally use the rule of if the place has a dining area separate from the bar, then I'll take my kids there. If it's a bar only, kids stay at home.

 

In Wisconsin, its not at all uncommon to see kids in a bar, so it really doesnt bother me. It really bothers my wife however and she feels that kids shouldnt be in a bar.

 

Right. Here a pub is simply a drinking place open to the general public. It may or may not serve food, until recently the majority of pubs were "wet" and only offered snack food such as bags of crisps (potato chips?) and pork scratchings
http://www.justbeermicropub.biz/

Food is fairly common these days, if it is fancy and expensive the establishment is called a gastropub.

 

Oh. I thought you meant perhaps something beyond this fact alone.

I guess, reflecting back on my time living in Northern VA, I would have to agree with you. A lot of NoVA is like pre-planned neighborhoods and a lot of it is "new" compared to PA, so you don't get the bar in every neighborhood like in PA.

I think I prefer having myriad neighborhood dives as we do in PA, although, these corner watering holes don't seem ideal for kids.

 

Well, out in Western Pa. they sell Iron City.

 

It depends on the age I say after 15 most can handle drinking in a controlled environment. I don't see the problem as long as they aren't causing problems.

 

I think as long as the kid stays in their car seat it's cool.

But seriously growing up in Wisconsin it was not uncommon to go to the bar with my parents before going out for dinner. Hell it is legal there to drink with your parents in a bar.

I think if the environment is calm, not smokey, and safe there really is no reason not to bring a child in to a bar.

Removing the stigma from alcohol will create a more responsible adult, or at least a better drinker.

 

She was pretending that it wasn't hers.

 

To me if I was the proprietor, I would limit those seats for adults if it was that much of a $ loser...

 

Luckily, my kids save ALL their crappy behavior for the house or the car, or the occasional snit when we're out shopping & they don't get what they want...

 

Brewpubs and Restaurants, of course! Dive bars probably not

I honestly don't mind since I spend a good chunk of time babysitting/distracting my sisters 2 year old. My issue would be more with the sloshed parent(s) driving home with a kiddy in the backseat.

 

This is an easy one. Well behaved kids before happy hour. That way women can have lunch together and complain about their husbands. Then they leave and men can complain about their wives.

 

It's a good thing your parents didn't hate kids as much as you do.

But on a more serious note, and I'm not sure what parts of the US you have lived in, but there is a large area of the country where the only food service establishments are also the local bars, and it's also expected that kids will of course be present up until a certain hour.

 

ISO

 

It's kind of like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's ruling on pornography. We can't really define it but we know it when we see it. A pub in this collaborative definition seems to equal "family friendly" and every other bar is a "dive".