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3.28.2008

Family Friendly Restaurants - Bend Oregon

Family Friendly Restaurants

If you were asked to name the best family friendly restaurants in Bend Oregon, what would your choices be? Tonight I received an email from a family that is going to be visiting Bend this weekend with quadruplets that are celebrating their 12th birthdays. Oh my goodness!! Could you imagine? I've written about dining out with kids before but I couldn't imagine going out to eat with four kids every time. That's like taking out two other couples every time you go out to eat!

Andre Jensen wrote a good article on his top 5 family friendly restaurants over at True North Parenting which I will totally agree with. Deschutes, BBC, Baldy's, SOBA, El Caporal, 38 Degrees, and Jake's are all great places to take the fam. If you're going to take your kids to 38 Degrees, go on Tuesday for their special Tapas Tuesday's menu on top of their normal menu.

One of the questions in the original email was about which restaurants will sing Happy Birthday or do something special for the birthday child. I instantly thought about one of my favorite movies "Waiting" when the waitress yells "Birthday Singers!!" and everyone groans and cusses before singing one of the worst birthday songs to an oversized 6 year old.

The only places that I know in town that will sing Happy Birthday are Red Robin and Every Mexican Restaurant. I like El Caporal where they sing in Spanish and again in English and will take your photo in a Sombrero. But I'm 89% sure they do the same at the other El Caporalesque restaurants in Bend.

Red Robin is ass and they sing Happy Birthday every 37 seconds. Time it....I'm accurate. There was a study at the University of PSU that the average Red Robin employee loses their upper register by the age of 37 due to their overactive singing glands, which is 58% higher than the average Red Robin employee in China. Google it.

If you know of another restaurant that you'd recommend for birthday kids please feel free to let me know. If you say that pizza place by Fred Meyers, I'll block you from my site.

Tumalo Feed Company is a good one and rather affordable, I'd take that pack of kids there for sure, even though I don't have a review of them.

UPDATE: Alandra Johnson from the Bulletin has compiled a list of family friendly restaurants HERE. The list is pretty good but a little heavy on the chain restaurants. Everyone knows that McDonalds is kid friendly. I'd like to see the chain restaurants in their own section at the bottom of the list with the local restaurants towards the top.

Now I want to see a list of Adults Only restaurants or Date Night Dinners.

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11What? Got something to say?

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the way you write! :) Thanks for the giggle this morning and for the helpful topic! I laughed pretty hard at the Red Robin comments. (a past birthday staple when our kids were little)

Thanks again-

Jami

March 27, 2008  
Blogger What the Freq said...

Dare I say it.... I would love to see them go to Baltazar's.

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Bend Oregon Restaurants said...

Thanks Jami, I love the way I write as well!

What the Freq is obviously referring to Baltazar's not wanting children in his restaurant. Good one but these kids are turning 12, no high chairs required.

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Debi said...

I must say that with two kids (1 & 2) Black Bear Diner is VERY kid friendly. Great food, good prices and they are always very accommodating.

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

Unfortunately I waited tables at Applebees for FOUR long years (what was I thinking?) and can attest to the fact that they are very birthday friendly. I still remember all the words to all the birthday songs. Oh god.....

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

I think Kayo's Roadhouse is sort of a Red Robin clone. They sing.

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Jen said...

Zydeco is very kid friendly and our kids love it. Not cheap, but lots of fun and good food.

Don't forget Cheerleaders for lunch! (I wish they were still open for dinner.)

The kids might also like Cat 6 for some gaming, or maybe (blech) Sun Mountain.

I think the next blogger meetup should be at Pappy's, just for you BOR!

March 27, 2008  
Blogger dkgoodman said...

Tumalo Feed Company has great food and lots of it. When I took my wife there for her birthday they sang a funny song (the Old Gray Mare) and took our photo and gave us the polaroid. It's still on our refrigerator.

Yeah, definitely take the fam to Baltazar's. heh. Not.

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Chillable said...

We like Merenda on a busy night for taking our 13-month old out to dinner. Not for birthday reasons, but because it's LOUD---and no one can hear them yell over the restaurant noise.
Another great place for kids is Old Town Pizza...and the best pizza in town, besides that!

March 27, 2008  
Blogger Jen said...

BOR, did you have anything to do with this: http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080328/NEWS0107/803280395/1001&nav_category=

??

Timing is interesting, eh?

March 28, 2008  
Blogger Bend Oregon Restaurants said...

Hey Jen,

No I didn't have anything to do with that list that I know of. Alandra wrote me yesterday after reading my post to let me know that their list was going out today. I thought that was rather funny actually.

-BOR

March 28, 2008  

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