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How should guests with kids act at restaurants? Dragon Pizza has some thoughts.
It isn't the first time an area business has shared its problems about guests with children.
Dragon Pizza’s owner shared some thoughts in a social media post about guests with children after restaurant staff told a group of families to leave the Somerville pizza parlor on Friday.
The post, which appeared on Instagram and Facebook on Sunday and was first reported by The Boston Globe, said the group of “negligent parents” and “unsupervised children” was “disrespecting our dining room, other guests, and our team.”
“Anyone who has visited our restaurant knows we are a pizza shop that LOVES KIDS,” read the post. “Sadly, we had to demand a group of negligent parents Friday to take their families home because they were disrespecting our dining room, other guests, and our team. Our restaurant, or any restaurant, is not a place for unsupervised children to play. It is here to share dining experiences.”
What followed were six thoughts:
- We welcome all children dining in our restaurant with open arms.
- We DO NOT welcome parents who do not want to share a dining experience with the children.
- We love sharing our games with children. Who wouldn’t?!
- We loathe parents who use our games as babysitters while they ignore their children and let them damage and abuse our games.
- We think our pizza is the best, worthy of respect, and cherish children who agree.
- We do not appreciate parents who treat our pizza as a cheap, simple option to feed their children until they can have their own dinner.
The Globe reported that Dragon’s post came after its owner, Charlie Redd, learned that the families shared details of the encounter on a Facebook parenting group. Boston.com tried to locate the post and reached out to people who appeared to know the family in order to get their side of the story, but Boston.com didn’t hear back in time for publication.
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Redd, who has children of his own, also wouldn’t share more specific details about the incident than what was said on social media, but he added that he wasn’t placing the blame on the children over the matter.
“This [post] is always in reference to the parents,” Redd told Boston.com.
With a career in hospitality, he said he built the Dragon Pizza space with families in mind. It’s not just a pizzeria, but the business offers an adjacent space, Dragon’s Lair, that includes games like shuffleboard and pinball.
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“Since the opening of my first restaurant, Redd’s in Rozzie, I’ve wanted to make guests with children comfortable,” Redd said. “It’s part of my philosophy to hospitality, for restaurants to engage everyone. We’ve been very successful here at Dragon accommodating groups with kids.”
Though Redd said it was the first time in more than six years of being open that they’ve told a family to leave, it’s not the first time an area restaurant has complained about guests with kids. The topic of guests with allegedly unruly children has become an online debate especially surrounding breweries.
Kids at breweries debate
byu/Pussypopculture inboston
Last year Rhode Island brewery Proclamation Ale Company wrote on Facebook a “gentle reminder” for guests who bring children that the staff and their board games are not “babysitters.”
The reactions, including to Dragon’s post, have been mixed. Many cheered on Redd for standing up for his business, while adding their own nightmare run-ins with families at restaurants. Others debated his guidelines or thought it was unreasonable to post such a statement in the first place.
“Anyone who’s waited tables knows this is a huge problem,” wrote one user on Facebook. “Some parents, not all, think their family is the most important family anywhere. It’s his restaurant; sounds like the kids were bothering other customers.”
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“I work at a brewery and kids running wild is BY FAR the biggest complaint we get,” a Reddit user said.
“You had me until no. 6,” one Instagram user said. “Why can’t parents give their kids pizza as a cheap easy option?”
“I like Dragon Pizza and go somewhat regularly, but this response is really really [expletive] weird,” a Reddit user said. “Just bizarre language.”
Some of the negative reactions were less relevant to the debate around guests with children, but referenced another incident that put Dragon Pizza in the headlines: a viral and expletive-laced run-in with the controversial Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. The social media personality came to Dragon in 2023 to do a filmed One Bite review, but the video quickly turned into a spat between Redd and Portnoy.
The viral dispute resulted in Dragon Pizza getting review-bombed, and Redd said they received death threats. But the aftermath also saw lines out the door from customers showing their support.
We want to know: How do you feel about the behavior of guests and their kids at restaurants? Share with us in the form below or e-mail us at [email protected]. Your response might be featured in a future article.
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