Monday, April 18, 2011

No Excuses Accepted

I'm sure many of you have seen the articles coming out in the news about the toddlers that were served alcohol instead of the juice their parents ordered at two popular restaurants lately. One toddler served a margarita at an Applebees and another served sangria at an Olive Garden.

I find these stories to be completely unbelievable for a huge number of reasons. I guess for starters - are the employees not paying attention enough to think twice before putting completely unrelated items into a freaking kids cup?! I believe in the case at the Applebees - they ordered apple juice... does a margarita look ANYTHING like apple juice to you? I'm thinking not. Not to mention that typically restaurants have margarita machines. In the second cause, I believe orange juice was ordered - and I don't know about what sangria you've had... but I've never seen on that was completely orange.

I don't see why kids drinks are coming out of the bar in the first place - it would make so much more sense to me to keep the drinks for children back near the cokes and iced tea... I mean MY drink doesn't come from the bar... why should my child's?

Honestly, though - I can't get over the fact that they put either of those items in a KIDS cup... where in the world would that be common practice? Two children were beyond the legal adult limit for alcohol in their system, and one of them could have died. How is this even possible?

As parents, we have to protect our children because no one else will... these stories make that all the much more apparent to me. You'd think that you could go out to get a meal as a family and not have to double and triple check everything - but I for one will not ever give my kids a drink without tasting it first.

What happened to the days when you truly could udder the words "it takes a village" and know that really was true? People are so careless that even our children can't let their guards down - and that's just sad to me.

4 comments:

  1. I'll second ya on this. My first thought is that the liquor license should be revoked and the server responsible released of their duties.

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  2. Oh my goodness! I think I've been living under a rock lately; I hadn't heard about this at all. How scary!

    I agree that the liquor licenses should be revoked - I also think the restaurants should pay for the medical bills for the kids. At a minimum.

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  3. I'm with you that this is ridiculous, but I can shed light one one thing: the reason many kids drinks come from the bar area is becuase that is where they have all of the juices to use in mixed drinks! Any time I ask if they have a particular kind of juice for my kids the waiter will respond that he will have to check with the bar!

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  4. I agree that it is unacceptable, but honestly I can totally see how it happened...
    I used to work at Applebees. They put most of the alcohols and mixers in white plastic bottles to make mixing drinks easy. (Although, I am not sure what drink calls for Apple Juice). It would be easy to make a mistake if you were a server, BUT the bartender should be serving up the juices, not the server. Also, many people drink margarita's on the rocks, so those were probably already made too without the use of a blender. I think it's a good idea to move the kids juices to another locale. I will be sampling my kids drinks too if they are not water or milk.
    I have learned that many servers are young and completely inexperienced when it comes to kids. They will think nothing of placing a burning hot plate within reach of my child or my soft drink in front of them. Don't count on any restaurant to help you raise your kid. A neighbor yes, a server no!

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