"Often on Saturdays and days when schools are off, we have school-age children visiting the restaurant without their parents. Usually, these children and teens are dropped off for several hours at a local bounce park and groups of them then walk over to our restaurant. While we love being a community restaurant and serving guests of all ages, some issues need to be addressed."
When did you start going to restaurants without an adult to supervise you? Had you been taught how to behave, and did you behave? I'm actually surprised that I haven't noticed this problem before. Why wouldn't 14 and 15 year olds, arriving in large enough numbers, crank themselves up into a noisy rave?
I remember the summer of 1969, when I was 18 and working at the new International House of Pancakes, wondering why the customers were so sedate, each confined to their discrete booth, alone with their personal pancakes and carafe of coffee. Like the 6 syrups in their metal racks, the customers kept caged. Why didn't they notice that we were all here together? Why didn't they turn around and interact, booth-to-booth? Why didn't they unlock the wild party that lies just a crazy impulse away?
And I was 18, 2 years beyond the point where the Royersford Chick-fil-A would permit me to be seated.
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When I was in sixth and seventh grade in 1980-81 we would ride our BMX bikes to local Hot Dog/Italian beef joints and chow down like boys do. But that was just a stop in our day, and we spent the rest of the day outside on our bikes.
We didn't hang out at the restaurant for hours.
I do blame the parents.
"Parents, we are not blaming you."
Understandable for a business that doesn't want to lose business. But also a sign that no one is ever held accountable. Well, maybe cishetero white men for systemic racism. Oh, and Big Pharma for the opioid crisis. Other than that, no one in America is to blame for anything, and even if they are, you can't say it. It would be mean. Uncouth.
I remember going to fast food places, and other places such as bowling, when no older than 12. But, perhaps importantly, we were spending our paper boy money, and that added a little solemnity to our proceedings.
I do recall slipping out of a pizza place, and the guy catching up to us on the sidewalk and making us pay. We considered it a prank, but I can see that the owner had to put it into his calculation of whether all these kids were worth it.
When I was a child in the 40s and early 50s, we used to hang out at a drugstore. We didn't have any money, and perhaps that is now a factor. The owner did not like us being there but the worst we did was to put a menu on top of a glass of water and tip it upside down on the table.
I don't recall going to restaurants until high school.
It may not be simple childish energy -- it may be proto-gangster "flash mobs" where a large event is organized via social media. This can be innocuous (e.g., dancing in a mall) or criminal (e.g., overwhelming, distracting, and stealing).
The problem likely lies with parents who are equally tied to social media and lost/never had parenting skills. We are becoming fat, happy, and lazy Wall-E feral humans.
They had to do something. It was like Lord of the Filets in there.
Respect for other people as well as our laws begins at home with the parents and should be reinforced at public schools, but no longer is. Many parents these days are not doing their job as a parent for various reasons, including wanting to be their children’s friend instead of guiding and disciplining the children. Chik-Fil-A is dancing around the subject about blame to avoid pissing off their customers. The parents are to blame, aided and abetted by the public schools who no longer discipline unruly children.
Interesting. Our favorite little Italian restaurant is just a block from a regional park with a dirt bike trail and a BMX course, but I have never seen teenagers misbehave in the restaurant. Is that because it’s frequented by big men who work hard with their hands (and who might not put up with lunchtime rowdiness)?
When I was a kid, I did go to the occasional restaurant with friends, but I knew how to behave because my parents made that expectation clear. Loud talking, laughing, and leave within an hour. Leave the other customers alone, no cursing, and pay your bills.
I live near there and go in that Chick-fil-a routinely. The children are being dripped off at a different facility, which is also run by teens (Urban Air, a trampoline ‘gym’). Much as many stores near schools have rules re: unsupervised children, this isn’t a big deal. My teen son, going through the drive through for a meal almost hit one of the kids because they were horsing around and jumped out in front of his car.
Chick-fil-a isn’t the bad guy here either.
In Spring Green (Wisconsin) in the 60s and 70s, the high school kids would swarm into a couple of the restaurants or shops after school. I remember the tension and glares from the staff and not understanding why they felt that way.
We didn't have a family dinner at a restaurant until I was in high school.
Restaurants were expensive...
Where I grew up, there were no restaurants to go to that didn't require a drive of 13 miles, so, I didn't to one on my own until I had a driver's license at age 16.
It was a small enough town that you behaved yourself or it would get back to your mom and dad.
Does a business owner get to say "no"? "No. I won't bake a cake for your gay wedding." "No. Your preteens don't get to hang out here unaccompanied." "No. You are not allowed to come imto my store without a mask." "No. You are not allowed to post 'Covid originated from China' on my website."
I've got my preferences but they are purely political. I can't suss out a principal-based argument that doesn't accept or reject all cases, not just the ones that cause the predictable outrage on Fox/MSNBC.
My 10 year old son just completed a basketball season. As a reward, we took him to a local amazing place that combines 2 seperate businesses into one "restaurant" - a made-to-order pizza place and a best-cookies-in-the-world cookie shop.
He and his team got their pizza and cookies and quickly took over a back corner of the restaurant. They were loud and boisterous there, but as soon as any of them got up they were relatively polite 10 year olds. Meaning they made efforts to be respectful, not scream across the restaurant, and picking up after themselves with medium success.
I would expect him to be the same or better at 14-15 if he was by himself. If he wasn't, I would expect to ban him from such activities and have talks with his friends/friends parents.
I wonder how long that Chic-Fil-A tolerated it before making this decision. That's rough.
If the parents are present during teen misbehavior, reasonable to assign blame.
Teens in a pack are not always restrained by their upbringing. They may have been raised in a civilized environment, but that makes little difference when out in the wild.
And, Chick-fil-A more McDonalds than Olive Garden.
It's likely the group dynamics coupled with age. One or two teenagers, assuming they weren't teammates, boys in sports seem to carry the lockerroom mentality everywhere, would likely be okay. But get a lot, with interactions between tables, and jostling for peer attention, then you have problems. Not unlike Scott Adams observation to avoid unknown groups of people of a different race/ethnicity. The group/mob mentality can take over driven by just a few who dare break the "peace".
I suspect we were dreaded in the late 1970s at the new McDonalds that was in the business district down from my high school. Naturally, it was the congregation site after school let out at 2:30. They even put in speed bumps in the parking lot because of a couple, both boy and girl who has sporty cars and would gun around the parking lot. Not just them, but they as both having hotrods stood out.
Is it that the kids don't know better, or is it that they like being jerks?
In my career as a pizza-joint manager, the one night I hated most was Friday night after high school football games. Teenagers would overrun the place, talk and scream loudly, and order one small cheese pizza for 6 kids. Adults who would spend more stayed away from the place on those nights.
One night a bunch of kids thought it would be cool to steal the salt & pepper shakers from the table. I charged them $1.50 per shaker at the checkout. That was more than the pizza, so they brought them back.
My 4 siblings and I went to diners and fast food restaurants, everywhere actually --dentists, doctors, stores-- by ourselves as as soon as we started school.
We were the "latch-key kids" of the seventies. We lived in brooklyn ny, so we walked everywhere or rode the subway; yes we rode the subway and busses alone as kids.
We knew how to behave because my mother was very strict.
>>Why didn't they turn around and interact, booth-to-booth?<<
Because that would have been fairly weird and intrusive, not to mention physically cumbersome? Just a guess...
At 17, I was deep-frying fish at H. Salt. So, technically, I was hanging out at a restaurant - and making pot money.
@Bob Boyd: They had to do something. It was like Lord of the Filets in there.
You, out!
religion
He's requesting parenting. I'll second it and request that the parenting thing happens nationally. I think we've let the kids determine our direction for enough years now and it's not working out.
So chic fil a is doing what our zoo-like public schools should do. Kick out the troublemakers and keep kicking them out until there are no more troublemakers.
You, out!
Maybe that's what the kids were doing in Chic-fil-a that was so disruptive, busting mad puns. Too many sandwiches were passing through too many noses. It was out of hand. It was off the chain. It was whack! Something had to give.
About four years ago we met up with the 6 grand kids and their parents in Dubuque for lunch. 6 kids 6 adults.
When we stood and gathered our things to leave, an older couple,(our age) came up to us and said what a joy it was to watch us all interact and enjoy each other, with laughter and fun. They admitted when they saw our group they thought about turning around and finding a different restaurant. Because that many 5 to 9 year olds is usually a huge disruption.
My point, it kind of is the parents fault. Good behavior is taught and modeled by parents.
Forcing the kids out like expelling the kids from school FORCES parenting. Until then it's all just noise to many "parents".
Forcing the kids out like expelling the kids from school FORCES parenting. Until then it's all just noise to many "parents".
Bob Boyd @ 9:14: “…Lord of the Filets..”. I saw what you did there.
expelling the kids from school FORCES parenting.
He, Dude1394, don't harsh my mellow, my quality of life. Shared responsibility, NOW. Keep women affordable available and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence sequestered at the twilight fringe.
I dined alone at a lunch counter when I was 12. After that I used to go in there with friends or my brother and we'd just sit there with our sandwiches and chocolate malts and chitchat. Maybe we talked a little loud as kids can do, but we were otherwise well behaved.
So, they are explicitly saying that the trouble makers are a group of "five or six boys". I don't think they should be stereotyping all boys. This is bigotry. Boy Lives Matter.
Before I was 10 years old, I would ride my bike, along with a friend or two or sometimes our whole neighborhood of kids, to a McDonald's about 4 miles away. Back then, there was no inside seating, so it was more of a stand than a restaurant. Nobody cared about us being there, spending our allowance money on burgers, fries and milkshakes. The ride home was hard, being gorged and all.
Joe Smith: "We didn't have a family dinner at a restaurant until I was in high school.
Too expensive."
Same here. Our first time out was to a pancake house. The grandparents paid.
Had no way to get to a restaurant before I was 16 and driving. And after I was 16, I was working at Shoney's and was well behaved when I went into a restaurant. In large part because I saw how badly people in restaurants were treated by some, especially the drunks that came in between 12 midnight and 2 AM when we closed. Everyone should have to work in a restaurant for at least a year. Attitude adjustment.
Forcing the kids out like expelling the kids from school FORCES parenting. Until then it's all just noise to many "parents".
Nope. All it does is produce more unsupervised delinquents prowling the streets. It's the main reason why schools don't expell kids anymore.
This also happened in a shopping complex south of where I live. During COVID, apparently numerous parents were dropping off their bored, out-of-school teenagers at the complex and allowing them to roam unsupervised. Eventually the complex had to ban them and threatened to arrest unaccompanied minors, as they had begun harassing people, disrupting traffic, and stealing from local businesses.
Chick-fil-A cannot afford to host insurrections, occupations, incursions, and gender tantrums.
Mama, abort your "burdens", before they liberalize.
"...when I was 18 and working at the new International House of Pancakes, wondering why the customers were so sedate..."
It was the venue more than anything. IHOP ain't Cheers. In fact, most restaurants don't see much interactions between people at different tables unless it's a bar & grill frequented by locals (think Village Green in Middleton). At least that's been our experience in WI, and more recently, here in PA.
A local movie theater where I live just banned all teenagers after 7:30pm.
I always made my kids behave. Don't ask them about the time we stopped at Hardee's. They wouldn't quit fighting with each other in line and so home we went. They eventually stopped crying. They will never claim that I was their "friend" when they were growing up.
So why wouldn't the owner just identify the 5 or 6 who are the troublemakers and kick them out, or publicly shame them?
Could it have anything to do with the prevailing political climate, in which there are certain protected classes of persons with regard to which classes of persons nothing negative may be countenanced? And the full force of the guardians of political status will be brought to bear?
A tough spot to be in.
The bad kids ruin things for everyone else. I remember that from kindergarten.
They showed a clip on the morning news.
A high school boys basketball game, the refs tossed out the whole student section of the visiting team because of the constant stream of obscenities coming from them.
This batch of kids are arrogant and entitled.
This topic is a Rorschach test.
Royersford only has about 5000 residents and 90% are white.
It would be interesting to know if it's the 10% giving the other 90% a bad name, or vice versa.
Of course that would require some actual reporting, which we'll never get.
Or maybe it's news that can't be reported.
When I was 12, we’d ride our bikes to food pit #17. Yes, that #17. We each had a machine gun mounted above the back wheel for the gunner.
Running joke: why do the sex slaves keep falling off MY bike. Do I not VALUE them?
I was most definitely a free-range kid as the only child of a single-mom who worked full-time. Back in the sixties, we lived in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I walked to school by myself starting at age 8, carrying my brown bag lunch. But my mom would give me 25 cents for an occasional lunch out. I'd walk to a nearby deli/sandwich shop, buy a fifteen-cent hamburger and a ten-cent Sprite in a green glass bottle from the big red Coca-Cola vending machine. Ate at a booth and watch the traffic go by---I was in heaven!
Funny how I can remember it so clearly; the thin little burger with one dill slice, ketchup and mustard. The glass bottle clicking against my teeth as I sipped that icy-cold fizzy Sprite. Feeling so grown-up and excited to be navigating the world, making my own decisions, carving out my own little oasis.
I WAS Matilda, absent the abusive parents and the magic. Who lets eight-year-olds do such things today?
Royersford may have only 5k, but PA is a commonwealth where you can pass through three townships crossing the street. Royersford, Limerick, Spring City, Collegeville and Upper Providence are all in a three mile circle.
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