Crying Baby makes news at Alinea

http://www.suntimes.com/24934994-418/co ... urant.html

I certainly would not want a crying baby near me if I were at Alinea or any high end restaurant (or anyplace for that matter -
disclaimer: I am a mom). What think?

If their babysitter cancelled at the last minute, and no other babysitters were available, what's better - take the baby or leave it at home alone for hours? With a non-refundable ticket policy, are there any other choices?

nr706 wrote:If their babysitter cancelled at the last minute, and no other babysitters were available, what's better - take the baby or leave it at home alone for hours? With a non-refundable ticket policy, are there any other choices?

Stop it!

pairs4life wrote:

nr706 wrote:If their babysitter cancelled at the last minute, and no other babysitters were available, what's better - take the baby or leave it at home alone for hours? With a non-refundable ticket policy, are there any other choices?

Stop it!

I'm not sure how pairs means her reply, but it prompts me to think that an entirely sensible answer is: If you are dependent on a sitter showing up (which means you are always subject to the possibility that a sitter won't show up), don't go to restaurants with non-refundable ticket policies. There are plenty of good restaurants that take good old-fashioned reservations, and when the kids are grown, Alinea will likely still be there.

You don't bring a kid to Alinea, but Achatz is the one who said OK. He should have sucked it up and whipped up a kids meal. Freeze-dried pureed peas? Liquid carrots? Pear vapor? Breast-milk cheese?

As I was following this on Twitter last night, one of my favorite comments was from a former Trotter employee who said that babies made an appearance occasionally and the staff took turns holding the baby so the parents could enjoy the meal.

I think people should take this whole thing with a massive box of Maldon salt. Achatz never said anything actually happened. Kokonas was equally circumspect in his response to the hubbub. And golly gee whiz hardly anyone is talking about empty Next seats. What a coincidence!

Since there is a fake twitter account the Alinea baby maybe there should be one for the empty table at Next?

I think riddlemay has the right idea here.

Hi- They are going to discuss this tomorrow morning on GMA. I think they may be interviewing Achatz. I feel that the parents should have not made the reservation, but Alinea should have a way for you to get some of your money back if you have to cancel too.

NFriday wrote:Hi- They are going to discuss this tomorrow morning on GMA. I think they may be interviewing Achatz. I feel that the parents should have not made the reservation, but Alinea should have a way for you to get some of your money back if you have to cancel too.

Are you saying that parents shouldn't make reservations at Alinea because their child care plans might fall thru?

Although I would not relish the idea of a crying baby next to me at Alinea, I am bothered by the whole thing for two reasons:

1) THEY let the parents/kid in, so suck it up. Don't embarrass or make the parents feel guilty; this is an example of how "customer oriented service" has gone out the window at Achatz' places.

2) For God's sakes, don't tweet about it. Have an internal discussion about it but don't publicize it. Comes across as a jerk to me.

I caught it on GMA before walking out to the train this morning. They mispronounced Alinea, and called Grant “Greg”, so there’s that. Nothing really was said either, other than someone had a baby crying so the GM asked them to step away, and that they could see both sides of the issue- not exactly the story of the century.

I am convinced it is just a PR move, nothing else. Everyone involved certainly got their 15 minutes of attention- from Alinea, to the sycophantic twitter followers who could not rally behind callouts of the evil Alinea patrons fast enough, to the insufferable “312 Dining Diva” who seemed to take the whole thing personally, she was so hysterical (which landed her some press as well, how convenient!). I would be interested in seeing Grant tweet about new menu development and restaurant plans rather than this nonsense one of these days….

Are you saying that parents shouldn't make reservations at Alinea because their child care plans might fall thru?

Why would parents be the only one whose plans might fall through?

xxx

As a parent who brought children to restaurants from infancy through adulthood I agree that there are certain environments where children should not be included. This is theater to a large extent and it's inconsiderate to force others to deal with your issues. There are people who have traveled to Chicago and planned months ahead for this experience and forcing them to deal with your baby is incredibly inconsiderate.

Aside from the fact that selling non-refundable tickets to a dinner is pretentious in my mind, if you don't want kids there, don't allow them in. Print "18-and-Over" on the ticket along with all the other pertinent information. If you let them in, don't bitch that a baby acts like a baby.
That said, I wouldn't dream of bringing an infant to a place like that; I agree with spinynorman99. Screaming babies are not pleasant to listen to, especially when you're at a high-end restaurant. And it's just as unfair to the baby to keep him there, unhappy, for up to four hours.

Pie Lady wrote:Aside from the fact that selling non-refundable tickets to a dinner is pretentious in my mind.

The LTH holiday meal is non-refundable, though transferable. I hardly consider it pretentious, especially when it is to cost. I have an event where the caterer and everything is paid in advance, where reservations cancelled at the last minute with expectations of a refund would be an issue. Yet if a statement related to this was not stated, there would be hell to pay another day.

I haven't followed this story carefully to know all the nuts and bolts. If I were Alinea with people with pre-purchased non-refundable tickets were showing up with a baby, I would help everyone involved by allowing them to change their reservations.

Regards,

Blaming Alinea's pre-paid ticketing system is such a lame cop out. Many (if not all) restaurants of a similar caliber have cancellation policies and will charge a diner's credit card for cancelling late or not showing up. If this couple would have had a reservation at Grace or even Schwa, an unreliable baby-sitter would have put them in a similar bind.

My one question in all this, is did this couple attempt to contact Alinea at all and explain their predicament? Maybe Achatz and co. are heartless misers that would have told them to take a long walk off a short pier, but my hunch is that this is not the first time extraordinary circumstances have prevented diners from attending and that Alinea would do their best to accommodate or make other arrangements given the circumstances (I could, of course, be completely wrong about this).

So, the baby-sitter cancels and the couple makes the decision to bring the baby with them thereby inconveniencing other dinners. Whether it's Alinea or Denny's, such behavior is blatantly inconsiderate, and I'm saddened (but not shocked) at those attempting to rationalize or defend the couple's actions. Sign of the times, I guess.

(Alinea is not blameless here. It sounds like they were caught off guard, and did not handle it in a very deft manner).

I think the prepaid tickets are a genius solution not only for Alinea but for people that want to go there. Hanging on the phone trying to get someone to make reservations is not my idea of fun, I would much rather go to the website and deal with that. If anyone is going to expensive Alinea, its not on a lark and they should be serious about going. It would help if they would publish their policy on babies, I am thinking they don't want to get bad pr about it so they stay mum and hope for the best. They could have helped the parents change the date of their visit but if they did that for everyone who had an emergency they would still lose out on money. I am not sure how the website works.

Cathy2 wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:Aside from the fact that selling non-refundable tickets to a dinner is pretentious in my mind.

The LTH holiday meal is non-refundable, though transferable. I hardly consider it pretentious, especially when it is to cost.

I don't find that pretentious either, because the LTH dinner is different in my mind; an event. The whole restaurant closes down to serve one group. I see now that my wording was not the best. I didn't mean that no dinner should ever be ticketed; they sell tickets to dinner theater, after all.
Also, LTH has never had a problem with admitting children to any event, I don't think. If these diners went to the LTH dinner with a baby, that would not have been a tweetable offense.

While I certainly think the tweeting of the incident was totally tacky, I'm giving Alinea the benefit of the doubt that they have good reason for making their tickets non-refundable. There is surely a ton of preparation and ordering of very pricey, hard-to-come-by ingredients that likely goes into every dinner and which is managed closely (though I realize, of course, that most restaurants are able to function without operating this way-- even very high-end ones). I guess my feeling is that if one wants to buy tickets for such a dining event, one has to be prepared to eat the cost of the ticket(s) if something happens (e.g., childcare falls through, someone gets sick). If Alinea were to make an exception every time someone's sitter cancels, they'd never be able to manage their tables to the fullest and would constantly be in rescheduling mode. I'm not saying I love the non-refundable ticket thing; I'm just saying that it is what it is, and would-be diners can decide whether the risk of buying the ticket is worth it to them.

toria wrote:It would help if they would publish their policy on babies, I am thinking they don't want to get bad pr about it so they stay mum and hope for the best. They could have helped the parents change the date of their visit but if they did that for everyone who had an emergency they would still lose out on money. I am not sure how the website works.

I think they are best to handle this on as they happen basis (with likely an internal policy) instead of announce a public policy. People would latch onto their public baby policy and make a lot of hay about it both pro and con.

There was a bakery on Clark St which was tarred and feathered for asking kids to use their indoor voices (at least what I recall), which is memorialized on this board with a very lengthy thread.

Regards,

Substitute "opera," "theater,: or even "Springsteen concert" above and see how many people would think bringing a baby would be an appropriate compromise. When I went to the Springsteen show at Wrigley there were people there who easily paid more for a ticket than a dinner at Alinea. I don't doubt that many had kids and of those, I'm sure they all did their best to ensure that they had a solid babysitting plan.

I've brought my kid to concerts, fine-dining establishments, poetry readings, etc. If he behaved, we stayed. If not, we left. I don't care if my kid being there makes anyone uncomfortable. If he's not disruptive, it's your problem, not mine. As for the disruptive adults, it'd be great if they could be removed, too.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:I've brought my kid to concerts, fine-dining establishments, poetry readings, etc. If he behaved, we stayed. If not, we left. I don't care if my kid being there makes anyone uncomfortable. If he's not disruptive, it's your problem, not mine. As for the disruptive adults, it'd be great if they could be removed, too.

=R=

Very well said.

ronnie_suburban wrote:I've brought my kid to concerts, fine-dining establishments, poetry readings, etc. If he behaved, we stayed. If not, we left. I don't care if my kid being there makes anyone uncomfortable. If he's not disruptive, it's your problem, not mine. As for the disruptive adults, it'd be great if they could be removed, too.

=R=

This is my policy as well with the reinforcing note that if the kids became a significant disturbance I could not resolve we left.
For the most part if one of my kids got antsy at dinner I would take them for a walk to the bathroom, perhaps a stroll outside if the weather was nice. If I couldn't placate the kid we left.

ReddiWhipSmart wrote:(Alinea is not blameless here. It sounds like they were caught off guard, and did not handle it in a very deft manner).

I was not there so I don't know precisely what happened. Although it seems logical to presume that in the years that Alinea has been open, there have been infants there before. Maybe all of them slept through the meal ( ), maybe not. But the issue I'm having trouble with is: why doesn't Alinea have a policy to deal with this? As Ron said, if the kid (of whatever age) is well-behaved, I've got no issue. If the kid (of whatever age) isn't, you take him/her outside to calm down. So service on the entire table is placed on hold for 15 minutes. The table what brung the infant assumes the risk; the infant is escorted outside. Nothing happens until the 15 minutes are up. Then, either a "well-behaved" kid comes back and the meal resumes or the meal resumes sans kid (and, presumably, parent of kid).

The hard(er) part is handling "grown-ups" who misbehave. I'm no more amused or pleased with a loud (whether the loud is a "happy" or an "unhappy" loud) table next to me than I am with a squalling infant.

zoid wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:I've brought my kid to concerts, fine-dining establishments, poetry readings, etc. If he behaved, we stayed. If not, we left. I don't care if my kid being there makes anyone uncomfortable. If he's not disruptive, it's your problem, not mine. As for the disruptive adults, it'd be great if they could be removed, too.

=R=

This is my policy as well with the reinforcing note that if the kids became a significant disturbance I could not resolve we left.
For the most part if one of my kids got antsy at dinner I would take them for a walk to the bathroom, perhaps a stroll outside if the weather was nice. If I couldn't placate the kid we left.

Perfect. Great to hear you both have had some success with this approach. As a new dad, this is the path we've taken so far and intend to continue taking as long as it works. (We just won't do it at Alinea, for fear of social media mob reprisal. Maybe we'll give Grace a try.)

--Rich

Not everyone is equally adept at parenting or is in possession of an internal barometer of appropriate behavior. I don't think anyone's debating the possibility that such a scenario can work but as a general rule "rely on your own judgment" is a non-starter. My wife and I vowed that we wouldn't let having children alter our lifestyles but then reality set in. Not every child at every age can be expected to behave on a schedule. So there were family-appropriate events and situations where we didn't want to spend our evening babysitting through a dinner. I don't care how angelic a child may be, a four-hour slog through Alinea isn't infant-appropriate.

My kid is 6 months old and I'm still afraid to take her anywhere for fear of being "that parent" that can't control them.