The topic of kids in restaurants has come up at the Cod now and again, and the question of camera phones in restaurant got batted around here a while back. At the same time, questions of teenagers in restaurants, and cellphone video games had not come up. Until now. On the Craigie on Main's Facebook page, the following item:
"What can you say? 5-top at Table 23 last nite,
Three grownups enjoying their Tasting Menus and 2 teens playing games
on their phones in a daze. Don't get us started. Sad."
The tasting menu at Craigie requires focus under the best of circumstances -- towards the end of both times I've done the full tasting menu at Craigie, I've felt overwhelmed, not in a Mr. Creosote way, but verging on being intellectually overloaded and aesthetically overstimulated. There is a lot going on in one of these meals. Were I COM chef Tony Maws, I would be frustrated to serve these meals to people who are not paying attention to them.
But if we presume there was some sort of family relationship between the grownups and the teens, how do the grownups allow this to happen? Craigie on Main is a serious, expensive restaurant. Why would parents a) waste money like this b) tolerate this kind of incivility?
They waste money because they have it to waste. They don't give a shit if their children eat the food or not. They're in that exclusive club, The Money-Wasters.
Posted by: Marco | Thursday, 24 June 2010 at 09:07 AM