Any parent who has taken their kid out to a restaurant knows how stressful the experience can be, no matter how well they plan out the night: at first, your kid says they're not hungry. Then they don't want anything on the menu. A few minutes later, they're bawling because they're starving, other patrons are sending death glares at your table, and you're wishing you'd just gone to the McDonald's drive-thru. Taking your kid out to eat can be a stressful experience for families, which is exactly why this Maryland restaurant's hilarious kids' menu has won over so many parents.
The kids' menu at Fager’s Island in Ocean City, Maryland first went viral after a visitor shared a snapshot of it on Reddit. The hotel restaurant has a kid-friendly menu with creative names for simple dishes: a triple layer PB&J is called "I don't know," a basket of chicken tenders is "I'm not hungry," and a cheese quesadilla is called "What?"
The owner of Fager's Island, John Fager, told TODAY that he originally got the idea from his daughter, who has a 4-year-old child of her own. Clearly, picky eating and cranky restaurant-attending kids are not a unique phenomenon.
For parents who are dealing with misbehaving kids, the menu is probably a dose of very welcome, lighthearted humor — and an understanding hat tip from restaurant owners who clearly understand what it means to be a parent. And anything that can help ease that anxiety is welcome, because as Jessica Biel once told E! News, taking children to restaurants can be "terrifying" for parents.
Since he's so little still and I'm still kind of learning how I do it in a very smooth and like elegant way, it's terrifying. You get to a place, you want to make sure the diners around you are not being bothered, you're full of anxiety, you're trying to go as fast as you can—you don't enjoy it at all.
With some restaurants putting one-drink limits on parents and others outright banning children from their establishments altogether, a welcoming attitude and light joking is always appreciated. After all, no one can get a babysitter for every single meal they eat out, and being a part of the world helps kids learn to interact with it.
So here's a small toast to the restaurants that help parents feel a little more welcome, picky children and all. Can we get a side of "I don't know" with that, please?
