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Mellorview is a local blog that from time to time touches on subjects related to pubs and eating out. I strongly identified with his recent rant laying out suggested guidelines for parents thinking of taking their children in pubs and restaurants:
Not everyone feels the same way about your children as you do. They may even have had some of their own. Perhaps they are enjoying a well earned rest from their children or have spent good money on a baby sitter.

There are any number of eating places in the UK that positively welcome children , even pre schoolers. You can easily identify them as they often use bright colours, give away toys, have playgrounds in them and their names may contain Wacky, Mac or Pizza

Choose eating out times with care, the sun can help you with this. If it has gone bobos in the summer then perhaps it’s too late. Best to take them before the little hand is on seven and the big hand on thirty.

When they are big boys/girls and can tie their own ties or shoelaces you can try somewhere else where they must be good for almost an hour.

When your treasures get to Big School, they can stay out a little longer as long as they can remember not to throw food on the floor. That way, the nasty middle aged man who has been scowling at you since the darlings were two years old will suppress the urge to take revenge by boring you to death with a twenty minute monologue on his last round of golf or the nuances of undertaking a 20,000 mile service on a Mark 3 Ford Cortina.
I have to say that the experience of walking into a pub and finding one room dominated by parents and wailing baby, kiddie paraphernalia strewn all about, and other customers conspicuous by their absence, is a profoundly dispiriting one. It’s hardly surprising that many adult pubgoers decide they’d be better off down the road in the Volestranglers’ Arms, or even back home with a nice bottle of ale from Tesco. I’m convinced that any pub that gives young children unrestricted access into areas not exclusively used for dining is losing a lot of business.

Incidentally, many years ago I was in the Malt Shovel at Oswaldkirk in Yorkshire and recall a sign saying “We are happy to serve children – roast, grilled or fried.”



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