[consumerist.com]

Chipotle has a kids’ menu with tiny quesadillas and organic milk, and offers high chairs in its dining rooms. They seemed to Chad like an establishment that welcomes and accommodates families with small children. When his wife took their 16-month-old daughter for a diaper change, though, she found no changing table. So she did the logical thing and changed the tot’s dirty diaper on a table in the dining area. Wait, what?

Chad sent us a copy of his letter to Chipotle’s headquarters, which is too long to reproduce here. This all went down at a restaurant in the Midwest, and Chad tells us that the location is pretty new, having opened in the last year or so. In the letter, he admits that his wife’s decision to change the kid in the dining area was “unsavory,” and apologizes for any health code violations that she may have caused, and for any inconvenience to the employees who had to sanitize the table.

Yet he defends her decision in his letter, and defended it to the (horrified) Chipotle employees as well. He concluded that they must not have children of their own based on their shock at his wife’s actions, and their apparently unacceptable suggestions for alternative diaper-changing spots. For example: they asked why the family couldn’t use their car. In his letter, he complained to Chipotle that the employees showed an

inability/unwillingness to empathize with parents who find [the car] a less convenient alternative even on a beautiful day like yesterday, much less a subfreezing day as we undoubtedly will have in [this region] this winter.

Consumerist consulted with the ultimate experts in this area: a number of parents of toddlers and former toddlers, who didn’t buy Chad’s arguments and pointed out the many alternatives. One could, for example, change the diaper while the child is standing up, or lay a changing pad on the bathroom floor. (This option does depend on your ability to get up from kneeling on the floor, and isn’t for everyone.) If the diaper isn’t a poop-laden catastrophe, it could wait until the family can get to another public restroom that does have a changing table. If it is a poop-laden catastrophe, exposing the entire dining room to that is gross.

The incident ended with the manager on duty telling Chad’s family that if they tried another dining room diaper change, they would immediately be asked to leave. That’s fine, Chad noted, because he wouldn’t be coming back until a changing table was in place. He pointed out in his letter that competitor Qdoba does have changing tables.

In a similar incident in Texas just last month, a family was kicked out of a pizza restaurant on their first diaper-changing offense. “I don’t want to lose all these other customers because they see a dirty diaper,” one employee there told a local TV station.

The real question that this incident raises is whether Chipotle restaurants normally have a changing table. The official answer: they do not.

Chipotle responded to Chad’s original letter with the following:

Thank you for reaching out to us. I’m sorry to hear that you and your family don’t feel as comfortable in our restaurants having a little one that might need changing. I can completely understand that it’s a hassle to find a way to change your daughter, and agree, that there are simply no alternatives as convenient as an actual changing table. We are currently in the process of retrofitting locations with changing tables, but I understand that this is not a very timely solution. I will forward your email to our [city] restaurant team, so they can understand where you come from, to maybe ease some of the tension. As you can understand it might be disconcerting for other customers to see a child getting changed directly on the tables, and we want to provide all of our customers with an exceptional experience.

We hope that we get to see you again soon, and that we find a good resolution that makes everyone happy.

When Chad wrote back and pressed for a precise date, they couldn’t give him one.

Separately, we contacted Chipotle’s communications department about the changing table question, and they confirmed that most restaurants in the chain don’t have changing tables, but they are considering it.

We are testing them in a handful of restaurants and our design team is looking to incorporate them into new restaurants that are in locations where we are likely to see a high concentration of families as customers.

It’s interesting that the bathrooms weren’t designed with changing tables from the outset, but maybe the program will leave the test phase and they’ll roll out more across the country.

Please, though, nobody hold diaper-in protests to pressure Chipotle to do it. People eat there.

Just another example from the entitled generation.

OMG. Talk about bizarre.

I was asked to leave at Hooters for breastfeeding my baby.

Hooters, ya'll. Hooters. And I used a nursing cover.

I was told that it might "offend other patrons."

This has nothing to do with entitlement. While they should not have changed their child on the dining room table, a restaurant that has a children's menu should have a changing table. At the very least it there should be a changing table in one bathroom. For a fine dining establishment that does not cater to children the lack of a changing table would be understandable. Chipotle should have one . I would have simply inquired where can I change my child? I have done the same for nursing my children. Ladies would you want to take care of personal matters in your car? Children are people too. Parents deserve to leave the home sometime.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2014 11:44AM by bettybob.

How was all this done before changing tables existed?

Diapers were changed privately in either a restroom or the family car.

As far as I know from me and my husband babysitting our grandchildren, changing rooms are only available in the ladies rooms of restaurants so I am always on poop duty when we go out. Would that then give a single father the right to infect patrons with fecal borne bacteria by possibly getting poop on a dining table?

More and more restaurants are putting changing tables in the men's rooms and also adding "family restrooms."

With the divorce rate around 50% and still rising, that's a wise move on their part.

Woohoo! Maybe I'll require him to get a restroom photo to prove there is no changing table in there before he gets off the hook next time!

My mother told me that she changed us while sitting in the stall. I never could get a wiggly baby to stay in that position long enough because it was uncomfortable for a big baby, but I never ever changed a baby in public. I think the baby has privacy, too. If I had to use a changing table, I covered my children's privates with a towel while cleaning them and getting the other diaper in position. For boys, that is doubly important because they might spray.

This family may expect a changing table and may request one for the future, but they should never ever demand one and use the dining table. I wonder if they could have been arrested.

On the other hand, the next time you see someone put a watermelon or other loose fruit or vegetable in the grocery cart, remember how many children sit there, sometimes with dirty diapers on, but certainly not in any type of clean situation. Then realize that the store you are in probably does not have one of those cart washing operations just outside the store. Ask yourself how many people probably never think to wash the outside of a watermelon before (a) putting it in the refrigerator and (b) slicing it.

If a family has more than two children, they sometimes get the riding stations that attach to the cart, but they still have children in the cart. Then I see small ones sucking on the side of the cart. The parents don't notice. When I was in the library once, with our child playing at my knees, another patron noticed that he was playing on the floor and licking it. I was grateful that she noticed. Parents these days are angry if another person saves their child from danger. Yes, I have seen and heard that.

I also think it is rude for a diabetic to test their blood sugar on the eating table. The restroom or the car are the only choices.

Some people just don't think, unless what they are thinking is, "Me, me, me."

That is just ridiculous. If it's so important to have a changing table, check before you sit down to eat. Otherwise, go somewhere else. Pretty simple.

I've chosen the car over a public restroom changing table many times! Those hard things freaked my kids out and I'm sure they are never cleaned, so I hated even letting my changing pad touch them - let alone the possibility of the baby's hands.

The table? Never in a million years. As bad as the purse puppy perched on one at outdoor dining area. We expected the waitress to tell her to take it off, but instead she just brought it a saucer of water! It took another patron exclaiming loudly, "She put the dog on the table!" for her to put it in her lap.

I always had a fold up changing pad in the diaper bag for my son. When he was around 20 months, He didn't trust the changing tables in restrooms. I guess the fact they just stick out from the wall without legs holding them up freaked him out.

I never once used those filthy, nasty changing tables. Think about it: dozens of babies changed, fecal matter everywhere, half-a@@ed clean up...no thank you! Why, yes, I am a germaphobe.

That being said, I also NEVER would change my baby in a dining area. I either went to the car or changed her in her stroller...or waited if I could.

ebit123 Wrote:
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> When he was around 20 months, He
> didn't trust the changing tables in restrooms. I
> guess the fact they just stick out from the wall
> without legs holding them up freaked him out.

This makes me giggle, I guess, at the level of intelligence of this 20 month old toddler. Just wondering, ebit, how old is he now and is he afraid of heights?

(heart)

I understand the need to change a child, but changing tables in restrooms are a fairly recent thing. They were not available when my son was young, and I am sure my mother did not have access to them when the five of us were young. They are a convenience. Changing a child on a dining table is gross!!! What if you are at the home of a friend with no children? They may allow you to use a bedroom, but they will not have a changing table. Are you going to head for their dining table too? I feel like some of the things we expect, while convenient and helpful, are not as necessary as we think. This may be something management should consider, but not something that should be demanded. As a society, we are no longer a problem solving people. We have become a people that expect others to pave our way and solve our problems for us. With the advent of bacteria borne disease, I am not sure I would want to use a changing table in a restroom anyway. There is staph and MRSA possibility, and while ebola is not widespread, it is passed through this type of a situation. I know that I will probably get a ton of negativity over this, but lets get real folks. A lack of changing table is no reason to cause other patrons to be exposed to the odor and downright uncleanliness of the dirty diaper dance. Those patrons have already paid for their meal, and it is those meals you have affected.

jroby1 Wrote:
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> We have become a people that expect others to pave our way and solve our problems for us.

^This! That's what I meant when referring to the "entitled" generation. You said it much better. We have raised our children to expect things to be given to them and that they have a right to things that we have always considered a privilege.

health code violation

nuff said

No comment.