Restaurant Bans Kids, Reservations Soar

The secret to restaurant success: ban kids and reservations soar. That’s what happened to an Italian restaurant in North Carolina, Caruso’s, after it banned kids under 5. Go figure.

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After months of shrieking, messy kids, the restaurant’s owner Pasquale Caruso noticed a downtick in sales. He told a local paper they were starting to “lose money and customers” and he decided to take a bold stand.

And it worked! After weeks of angry comments on social media (parents and customers lit up the restaurant’s Facebook and Yelp pages), the restaurant manager told The Washington Post that the restaurant has seen a “dramatic increase” in reservations and said that other restaurant owners have confided they wish they could do the same.

Boycotts are popping up and people are claiming it’s discrimination saying the elderly are next (because they’ll take too long to eat) but Caruso is holding strong. He’s a father of two and said he obviously doesn’t have anything against kids, his restaurant simply didn’t feel like his anymore. Kids “throwing food, running around, and screaming” just made the restaurant “feel like it wasn’t Caruso’s anymore, that it was a local pizzeria instead.”

For what it’s worth, Caruso’s isn’t a casual place, with entrees in the $20+ range and their homepage (the third line actually) lists that there’s no children’s menu available. So we’re not sure younger patrons would feel comfortable.

We’ll admit: we don’t have a problem with this. It’s Caruso’s joint and he can run it anyway he pleases, just as customers are free to visit any restaurant they want (and boycott ones they don’t). Caruso is running his place with thought and care and what he envisions for it is a child-free zone. He took a gamble that others wanted that too and it looks like it worked.

Maybe there’s an opportunity to open up a family-friendly Italian restaurant next door?