4-Year-Old Gets Booted For Not Following ‘Gentleman’s Dress Code’ At Restaurant

The parents of a four-year-old boy were asked to remove their child from the dining room of Phipps Tavern in Atlanta last week for not following what the restaurant calls a “gentleman’s dress code.” He was wearing a sleeveless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt. When I first heard the story I thought it sounded slightly ridiculous, but that parents should also try to dress their children accordingly. If it’s a really nice place that has a dress code, maybe don’t put your kid in a sleeveless t-shirt. Then I visited the restaurant’s website and my head exploded. The manager who made this decision has no critical thinking skills. This place is not fancy.

After the hostess approached the family, they explained he was only four and asked to speak to a manager. The manager told them the dress code extended to “gentlemen of all ages,” and asked them to leave. Let me just share a few photos from the restaurant’s web site so you can get a feel for the place:

Super fancy.

Lets bartenders put dirty feet on a surface where people consume food and beverages – kicks out four year old for not wearing sleeves.

The child didn’t get the memo that “gentleman’s dress code” is code for flannel shirt and jeans.

The restaurant wouldn’t speak to the local news station, but they issued a statement:

Rule does not apply for children and ladies — for gentleman only. It was an embarrassing misunderstanding on our part. She’s a manager in training who had a gross misunderstanding of our policy. We apologize and are reaching out to the family.

This is too funny. Poor manager. She booted a four-year-old. Methinks it’s going to take a while to live that managerial decision down. How would you like it if one of the first decisions you made at your new job was covered by news outlets across the country? The first thing that came to my mind was that maybe they didn’t want children in the restaurant – but it’s open from 11am until 11pm so I can’t imagine that’s the case. I think it just boils down to the fact that you can’t teach someone to have common sense.

(photo: Twitter/ tavernatphipps.com)