Kid Friendly Restaurants in the Dallas Area - Guest Post

It is easy for parents to succumb to cabin fever while raising children. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take them out if they are loud, and twice as hard to eat with them somewhere if they are picky. Here are some rules of engagement when eating out with little ones that can help to save a headache for you, the staff, and other customers.

• Bring plenty of distractions for younger children (1-4 years old) to keep them entertained while between waiting for food.
• Pack their favorite snacks in case they end up not liking the restaurants food.
• Go to a family friendly restaurant. As family-friendly goes, a good kids menu is important but a tolerant atmosphere is more important. The best restaurants are often boisterous enough to absorb most of the extra vocals coming from your young one. Below are some of the best kid friendly restaurants in the Dallas area.

Rainforest Café

To be perfectly honest, the quality of food and service here is usually subpar at its best. The food is hit and miss with average burgers and sandwiches and main entrees that are a gamble for the price, which is quite high. Definitely make a reservation if you have kids, or risk waiting in line for the better part of an hour.

All of these faults aside, kids absolutely love this restaurant. The atmosphere is totally geared towards children from about the ages of 2-10 and if you haven’t been to a Rainforest Café before be prepared for an… experience. The entire place is designed to look like a jungle with large, animatronic animals, fish tanks, mist, lightning, and even rain that all come together every 20 minutes or so in a loud show. There is plenty of stimuli to keep your kids entertained, even if you have to suffer through a mediocre dining experience.

Babe’s Chicken Dinner House

This might be one of my favorite places to bring the family or a large group. Babe’s is centered around a family dining experience and all of their locations around North Texas certainly deliver. The menu is surprisingly simple, and all you have to do is pick your choice of meat (surprise; their chicken is fantastic) and you get an endless source of sides. The kids menu features miniature versions of entrees from the adult menu so they can feel like they’re really eating with the grown-ups. You even get to dance along to the Hokey Pokey with the wait staff, or just sit back and enjoy.

Penne Pomodoro

Another great family style restaurant, but as the name suggests, this one offers Italian cuisine. This is not a quiet, tucked away restaurant, but rather a bustling experience that excels at hosting large parties and families. Loud children are easily drowned out by the hustle and the chatter, and the food is pretty good as well. On Wednesday’s, kids eat for free, but menu items are only around $5.00 for kids as is.

Any restaurant can be kid friendly as long as your kids are restaurant friendly. These types of restaurants in Dallas are great places to “teethe” your kids on as they learn proper manners for dining out.

Happy Eating!

Guest Post written by: Sophia Hobbs works with Dalworth Rug Cleaning, a Dallas based textile cleaning company. The business was founded in 1976 and has evolved through the years to provide comprehensive cleaning services such as Oriental rug cleaning, preservation, repairs, wrapping, and storage.