This Italian Restaurant Gives Discounts to Parents with Polite Kids

With mobile phones now as much of a mealtime fixture as knives and forks, the history of weird restaurant discounts and customer perks is well documented. It's all there in those Instagrammed restaurant signs and retweeted photos of lunch receipts; from the guy who got a markdown for having a well-kept beard to the restaurant that handed out rebates to ginger-haired folk. And who could forget the bar that'll give you free booze if you cut off your man bun?

Today, another restaurant makes its way into the Strange Discount Hall of Fame. Ferrari wine bar in Italy has started slashing money off the bills of parents with polite children.

Antonio Ferrari, owner of the eponymous bar and restaurant in Padua in northern Italy, created the unusual discount after he noticed five children in a family party of 11 exhibiting good table manners during their meal. Much to the family's delight, Ferrari added a five percent "sconto bambini educati" [educated children discount] to the party's bill.

Ferrari, who has since given the discount out to two other families with well-behaved kids, told the Guardian that unruly children often make his job harder. He said: "About 30 percent of parents do not know how to handle their children at lunchtime, and too often children run around the restaurant and bother other customers, forcing waiting staff to swerve to avoid them."

The Italian restaurateur isn't the first to resort to extreme measures when dealing with irritating small people. A few years back, an Australian restaurant owner banned under-sevens from his eatery and at the end of last year, a London cafe implemented a similar restriction on under-fives.

Ferrari's approach to juvenile behaviour management may veer more towards the carrot end of the persuasion spectrum, but if it rids our hungover brunch sessions from rowdy two-year-olds, we're totally on board.