OK, Let's Settle This: Should Kids Be Banned From Restaurants?

Bon Appetit asked me to write about this, so I guess it's time to watch the world burn.

Earlier this week, Bon Appetit asked me if I wanted to write an opinion essay about the issue of kids in restaurants, pegged to a NJ restaurant recently announcing that they would no longer allow kids under 10 to eat there. That piece ran today, and I’m happy with it! But as it goes, the final published version was condensed to less than half the length of my draft, which as an editor, I fully support. That said, there were some points that I had a nice time going a bit deeper on, and I thought I would share the long version here, in case my followers are similarly interested in a little further interrogation of what, exactly, we believe restaurants are essentially for, and what we do (or don’t) owe each other when we decide to leave our homes and share space together.

Here’s the version that was published on Bon Appetit earlier.

And the unedited version where I’m a little less polite about who we should and should not be designing society to please.