Originally Posted by PTravel
...It's surprisingly effective. One note: if I leave because of the presence of children, I'll pay for what I consumed, e.g. pre-dinner drinks, salad, etc., and I'll make a point of leaving a nice tip for the waiter or waitress. I do this for two reasons: (1) it's not the servers fault that the restaurant allowed the kid in, and (2) it sends a message about what kind of patrons the restaurant wants to encourage -- every server I've ever met has told me that the parents of the screaming babies and bratty kids (not the well-mannered boys and girls who, of course, are fine), leave a mess and never tip well.
Regarding point 2), the server is wrong.
On point 1), why would you tip anything if you had to leave the restaurant? Almost everything that can go wrong with a meal is not a result of the server's negligence. You are tipping for a service, and whose fault as to why the service stinks is irrelevant.
You should leave no tip and indicate why. That will actually send a message. Tipping well tells the restaurant that they should cater to obnoxious families, because they can collect big tips while doing little work for the other patrons.
I'm not being facetious when I write this; if a restaurant is supposed to be a fine dining experience then they should boot out people disturbing other patrons (whether it's an infant or people like my dumb fat relatives, loud is loud).
I take my kids to McDonald's, Burger King, Waffle House or Perkin's. It's cheap, I can smoke at the latter two, and regarding this thread, there is no expectation of library quiet dining. McD's and BK food leaves something to be desired but the kids love the playground.
What irritates me is when people complain about kids on airplanes and other venues like that. Fine dining is not one of them.