Philly restaurant pros – and parents – give advice for dining with kids

Dining out with kids is a minefield. The very mention of the subject can spark heated debates, so it’s no wonder that the actual act of bringing a child to a restaurant is anxiety-inducing. This isn’t lost on hospitality professionals, many of whom are parents, too.

“It’s hard not to stress out about ruining other people’s experiences,” says Amanda Rucker, who co-owns River Twice in East Passyunk with husband and chef Randy Rucker.

When the Ruckers began taking their now 2½-year-old daughter, Ruby, out to restaurants, they struggled to overcome their hospitality-first mentality. Amanda outlines the thoughts that went through their heads: “Should we bring a kid here? What if she starts screaming and disrupts everybody?”

But they plowed forward with introducing Ruby to restaurants, and as time went on, the process got smoother. Now, the whole family can dine out together without angst.

Other service-industry veterans attest to the upfront investment of taking young kids out to dinner. Take hospitality specialist Kristina Burke, who’s been taking her kids to restaurants since infancy. Last year Burke traveled to Paris with her late husband, chef Jim Burke, and their children, 9-year-old Sadie and 13-year-old Daniel. Their foodcentric adventures there culminated in a five-and-a-half-hour tasting menu at Alain Ducasse’s Le Meurice.

“We prepped them. We said, ‘We’re gonna be here a while, and this is really the experience of a lifetime,’ ” she says. “They were eyes wide open, like, ‘Let’s do it.’ ” The head chef gave the whole family a tour of the restaurant, crowning Sadie and Daniel with toques.

Or take sometime-bartender and hospitality consultant Roland Bui, whose 7- and 8-year-old girls have become such gourmands that their favorite foods are tongue tacos, sushi, and dim sum. It’s not all upsides: They’re so accustomed to dining out that Bui’s oldest, Olivia, has ordered more oysters for her and sister Isabel without him or wife Sandy Sanchez-Bui realizing. “Thankfully it was buck-a-shuck,” he says.

The Inquirer asked these restaurant-industry pros to give their best advice to parents who want to venture out with their kiddos with confidence.

These quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.

Roland Bui: ”I would message them online ahead of time, and if I didn’t get a response, I would call and ask, ‘Hey, is there a time you’re not as busy so we can come in?’ ”

Amanda Rucker: “We always let the restaurants know that we’re coming with a kid. That is super-important for your own comfort and also the restaurant. I know that [at River Twice] we have two tables where we like to seat kids. They have more space for strollers or car seats or diaper bags. If you let the restaurant know, they can have that set up for you already.”

Kristina Burke: If you’re nervous, “I would recommend starting [small], go to a breakfast spot instead of dinner. See how breakfast goes.”

AR: “We usually make a 5, 5:30 p.m. reservation — we never go later than that. It’s not the busiest time for restaurants, so you have a little bit more space.”

RB: “It depends on how old they are. Earlier on, I tried to do 5 o’clock, because their bedtime tended to be at 7:30 p.m. and I felt a little self-conscious about taking a four-top table at a primetime hour at a busy restaurant. But nowadays my girls eat just as much as we do, so I don’t feel bad.”

AR: “I have a little placemat for her, and we bring her own silicone plates and bowls so she doesn’t break any of the restaurant’s china. They fold up small in the diaper bag and it’s less stressful for us knowing it’s ours if she throws it.”

KB: “We always brought our own chair to the restaurant so we never had to ask for a high chair.”

AR: “We do a toy rotation. I have a bunch of little things she thinks are new when we bring them out, mostly reusable sticker books, which isn’t something that I get stressed out about — like marker. She’ll spend the entire dinner just doing that.”

KB: “We always brought books or something to draw. We would either read to them, or I would start to draw something and then pass it to one of the kids and they would finish it. Then when food came, we put the book down.”

AR: “I always bring snacks with me, like a banana or puffs. I think it’s important for them to have something immediately to like snack on. When we went to Kalaya, [chef Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon] came over with a bowl of rice before we even ordered. Some people just know.”

AR: “We’ll always have an escape plan. if trouble is going down, we’re just going to pay our bill, get to-go boxes, and say, ‘Sorry, we have to end our meal earlier.’ It isn’t ever an issue.”

RB: “We did the whole ‘You start eating and I make sure baby’s OK and we take turns’ deal... They have thrown tantrums at the table. You walk out and calm them down. Sometimes you can go back in, sometimes you have to wrap it up. If one parent didn’t necessarily fully enjoy their meal, that’s OK. It’s the cost of raising the kids.”

KB: “We told them, ‘You’re at a restaurant.’ That means you’re on your best behavior. If they threw something on the ground, we would pick it up and say ‘Don’t throw that. We’re not at a playground.’ And you put it back; if they threw it again, they didn’t get it back. ... I always told them, ‘People are working,’ so that when we stood up to take them to the bathroom, they didn’t run. You stay calm, you’re in someone else’s space.”

RB: “We talk to them like they’re adults and ask nicely at first with a calm voice. Sometimes you also have to flash them a little look that they will learn to understand means ‘That type of behavior is not the right type of behavior right now.’ If we need to have a more thorough conversation, it’ll be had outside, because it’s a private conversation, but we also take them away from an overstimulated situation.”

KB: “My No. 1 thing since the time they were born was a no-screen policy. No phones at the table, no iPads or tablets. ... I tell them when they’re eating at home, it’s the same rules as when we eat out: You have to sit up straight. You can’t have elbows on the table. You have to learn how to cut your food and have a conversation at the table.”

AR: “We don’t really take her to places where they’re coursing out the meal. When we go out with her, it’s an hour, hour-and-a-half dinner.”

RB: “There are places where the front of house staff really makes you feel welcome; they don’t make you self-conscious about bringing your kids there. If you feel comfortable, you’ll go back.”

KB: “There are certain restaurants that are really good about being a child- or family-friendly restaurant. And we did we go there more often, because my kids loved the food but also they loved the staff and the staff liked them. It was an easier atmosphere for all of us to enjoy.”

AR: “We’ll have dinners with her now where she’s engaged with us. We’ll read her book while we’re eating or she’s playing with the sticker book or putting her hands in the food and having a ball.”

RB: “We want to make sure that our girls are well-rounded when it comes to eating but also behaving at dinner. When they see the food that you’re eating, they want to eat it.”

KB: “They’re fun to eat out with now because we just trained them well.”