RESTAURANT MANNERS

Houston’s restaurant chain launches dress code, cell-phone limits for patrons
By Karen Robinson-Jacobs,

The Dallas Morning News ( www.dallasnews.com )
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

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Aug. 7– Houston’s, a 27-year-old upper-end, casual dining chain, is just the kind of place you might visit for a sit-down meal after shopping or for a more special occasion. […]

Signs painted on the doors, or wording printed on menus, admonish male patrons on how to dress and all customers on how to handle their cellphones in the restaurant. […]

The Houston’s approach has been applauded by some patrons who don’t want to dine next to hairy-armed men jabbering away loudly on cellphones.

Others see it as one more example of the food police dictating not what you eat, but how you eat it. […]

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We say “good move!” How soon until kosher restaurants jump on the cell phone etiquette band wagon? We hate sitting next to some young tootsie in a restaurant doing her best Valley Girl imitation at the top of her lungs to some one on the phone. Or some business type who has to let the whole know that he is a Captain of Industry as he barks into his phone. As for dress codes, we agree: people need to dress a little better when they go out. It’s time to put a little “chain” back in life.

(RJR)