The more and more I watch the news, the more and more that I believe parents need to take responsibility for their children’s health, safety and well being.
You’ll remember a few weeks ago I wrote about Parents Picketing over Peanuts. This morning, the first news story I saw was about a toddler ALLEGEDLY served alcohol at an Applebee’s restaurant in Michigan. The boy’s mother claims that the child started acting strangely after taking a few sips from his sippy cup. In an interview on Fox 2 Detroit, the mother says that the toddler was saying hi to the walls and putting his head down on the table. She goes on to say that she thought her son was drinking apple juice, but after sampling it herself, discovered the 15-month old was drinking a Margarita.
Perhaps my career in the restaurant industry caused me to raise some red flags around this story, or perhaps it was the blatant lack of parental responsibility. Red Flag #1: Typically, Margarita “mix” does not contain alcohol. A bartender would have had to add tequila to the “mix” {which is typically just a sour mix} and then pour it into the sippy cup. Red Flag #2: Why would any restaurant take a sippy cup and fill it when there are”kid’s cups” readily available. {Not sanitary to refill a sippy cup. Or any cup for that matter.} Red Flag #3: The story seems sort of far fetched. It’s as if the family is trying to scam Applebee’s.
I narrowed down my red flags and got to work googling “Applebee’s Toddler Margarita.” That search criterion turned up multiple results for a similar incident taking place in California in 2007. I’ve discovered that after the incident in 2007, Applebee’s no longer keeps Margarita “mix” and Apple Juice in similar containers. This also means that the “mix” at Applebee’s contains tequila. Perhaps I was too quick to judge and apply my “common sense” to this story. In my restaurant experience, Margarita “mix” does not contain tequila. I learned two things here: Applebee’s adds tequila to their Margarita “mix” and I shouldn’t order a Margarita if I dine at Applebee’s. I did not discover anything about Applebee’s procedures regarding the filling, or refilling, of sippy cups.
To Applebee’s: Review your service standards. Do not allow bartenders or servers to remove ANY toddler dinnerware (this includes cups, bottles, plates, bowls, etc.) from the table for any reason (this would include reheating, refilling, rinsing out, etc.). Have your bartenders or servers explain to your guests that this is to ensure the safety and well-being of their children. Implementing this rule would allow your teams to avoid another potentially newsworthy story, such as a server is given two identical sippy cups from two different families, yet returns the sippy cup full of milk to the family of the child who is allergic.
To parents: Protect your kids. Until all restaurants adopt the rule that I’ve proposed for Applebee’s, don’t allow a restaurant employee to remove ANY of your child’s dinnerware from the table. Ask for a kid’s cup, and CHECK THE CONTENTS YOURSELF. You check the temperature of the food before serving it, don’t you? Why is checking the contents of a cup any different? To me, this is common sense, but evidently checking your kid’s drink isn’t something most people do. I always do, and so should you. Remember, we signed up to protect our kids, to ensure their safety. And, this includes when we {get a night off from cooking} and take them to restaurants! Take some responsibility for your child’s safety.
What would you do if this happened to your child?
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