In our last night in Albany; my wife and son, her mum and step-dad and myself all went out on the town for dinner. We were walking around the main strip when we saw a restaurant called Mean Fiddler. The menu seemed nice and price seemed reasonable. We went in at 6pm but didn't have a reservation, no matter only 3 of around 15 tables being used and it was still early on before most people book their tables for dinner.
I asked for a table for 4 adults, the waitress turned to reach for the menus and guide us to a table but then I mentioned I had our son with us as well. No problem I thought, he can squeeze in between my wife and I and we saw a high chair in the corner we can use. The waitress got hesitant and talked with the lead waitress there. Suddenly we were told they were booked out, no tables available when only a few seconds earlier they could make room for 4 adults on their own.
I was on holiday so I didn’t want to bother trying to get into a place that didn’t want us, so we left. However I was enraged that a place would so obviously refuse service just because we had an infant son with us.
We looked around the strip at 2 other restaurants, however these were full of people and it was understandable when they advised us that there were no tables available. We eventually went back to a restaurant that we went to earlier in the week, Calamari’s at Beachside. Despite it now being 7:15pm and into the dinner bookings, they found us a table and provided an excellent service throughout. At one point the manager of Calamari’s saw my wife take a photo of us at the table, came over to us and offered to take a photo of all of us (the photo you see above).
As far as Mean Fiddler is concerned, I couldn’t rate their food cause they never gave us the opportunity but I wouldn’t give them another chance and I encourage anyone else (especially families) to do the same. In the end, they lost out on our $200 worth of business that night.