Brunch With Kids Without Losing Your Saturday

Brunch with kids is its own genre and it has its own playbook. The first rule is timing. Restaurants that open at 8 or 9 are kid heaven for the first hour: the room is calm, the kitchen is fresh, and you're done before any small attention span runs out. By 11 a.m., the room is loud, the wait is long, and a four-year-old has run out of crayons.

Eat early or eat at home. The second rule is the menu. Some brunch kitchens have a real kids' menu — pancakes, scrambled eggs, fruit, and a glass of milk. Others quietly assume kids will share off the adults' plates.

Either model works, but it's worth knowing in advance. Call the restaurant on Friday and ask. The third rule is seating. Booths are heaven.

They contain, they protect, and they let you pin the wiggly kid against the wall. If the host offers a booth, take it even if the table is otherwise fine. The fourth rule is order before you sit. The minute you arrive, ask the host to fire a basket of fries or a bowl of fruit immediately.

By the time the family is settled, food has arrived and the meal has started. This single move has saved more brunches than any other tactic. The fifth rule is forgiveness — yours and the room's. Other diners are mostly kind.

Servers are mostly kind. Kitchens know the deal. If your kid melts down, pick them up and walk a lap around the block. Come back.

Tip well, leave kindly, and pre-pay so you can leave fast if you need to. Brunch with kids is not the brunch you used to have, and that's a good thing. It is shorter, louder, sweeter, and stickier, and the photos from those mornings outlast every silent eggs benedict you'll eat in your life. The trick is to plan around the realities of a small person's stamina, and to choose rooms that welcome you rather than tolerate you.