A Romantic Dinner at our local Ikea Restaurant

Have you ever gone out for dinner in a restaurant only to have a child or two sitting at a nearby table yowling like wild beasts, throwing food on the floor, and basically acting like feral dogs spoil your experience? Yes? Well why did you not stop in a say hi to me and my family?

Ikea has an after-5pm dinner special that is actually pretty darn good. Thursday’s $2.49 meal special is the vegetarian quiche and salad, or as the young guy in front of us called it, “kwatchee.” He also asked if it is was a Swedish specialty dish. I’m not making a word of this up, no kidding. “Kwatchee.” Wow.

We knew that we were venturing out pretty late in the day. Wifey had been in the house with the twins all day and it is a treat for her to get out and see what she calls the outside world so I decided to take her for a lovely (although not so romantic) Ikea dinner even though it was getting late in the day for the twins.

Once we had our “kwatchee” we sat down at a table in the middle of the room. Ikea has cool little high-chairs for wee ‘uns so the twins were happily seated and ready to eat.

We fed the girls first, as usual. And then they were ready to go. Enough of this sitting around this big weird echo-y room. Even if we had not yet eaten our portion of the meal, they were ready to roll. To show her displeasure of having to sit in the high-chair Blonde Bear started to howl like a wild dog. And it was loud.

And you know, I understand that it is important to respect other people’s dining experience but c’mon! It is Ikea. A couple sitting nearby were growing increasingly annoyed looking as the howling continued. I was doing my best at stopping the noise but really was not having much success. So the looks bearing daggers continued coming our way. Whatever, it is Ikea, not the Cannery. When there is a child’s play area in the middle of the dining area and free plastic bibs alongside the cutlery, you should know what you are getting into. Big clues to tell you this is not going to be something upscale like Denny’s or the IHOP.

And then reinforcements arrived. Another family with three little boys sat down between our table and the Crankersons. In the old days I would have been just as peeved to see a family of little kids sit at a table near me. Today? These were my kindred spirits.

The Crankersons got up and rolled out of the restaurant as we introduced our feral beasts to their yammering off-spring. Life is beautiful.