Flashback: Outdoor Eating with Small Kids

It is finally starting to warm up and feel like summer here -- which means we are eating more meals outside. When traveling with children the more you can find outdoor restaurants, the more you have happy well behaved children. (Of course we did have the mallet incident in Annapolis, but that is another story).

The benefits of eating outdoors:
1. Noise - in a quiet stuffy restaurant a child can create quite a scene just asking for more bread. My boys are now 3 and almost 5 and they still have not mastered the quiet whisper. We've been shushed in indoor restaurants, but the great outdoors just doesn't have the acoustics.
2. Less worry about mess - my boys are generally pretty good, unless they are handed a cup with a cap and straw. Then they are downright messy neanderthals. Outside I worry less about a spill then inside a restaurant.
3. Distraction - Outside with flowers, birds, people walking by on the street, there is much more to see and to keep short attention spanned children occupied.
4. More low key - Even in fancy restaurants, outdoor seating is much more low key. It is better than cramped back area of the many restaurants where families with children are relegated to. And often you cannot beat the views, especially in towns on the water.

One of the reasons we love to travel in Central Europe during the summer with little ones, and one reason we selected Austria for our 2008 trip was outdoor eating. I wrote about the food market at Rathaus Platz. We never quite made it to the Opera broadcast on the big screen, but we did enjoy eating dinner there.

In California, near Santa Barbara there is The Beach Grill at Padaro. Even locally, one of our favorite haunts in San Jose, the Garage has outdoor seating, and now that it is warming up, this will be a perfect place to take the boys and eat outdoors.