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Community Corner

Las Palmas Offers More Than A Good Meal

Eating out with an autistic child isn't easy.

One of things you learn early on when you have a child with autism is that eating at a restaurant can be a difficult experience. We tried and gave up. Until recently.

As I've explained in past columns, Kai has a lot of trouble with waiting.  And at most restaurants, you do a lot of waiting. Waiting for your order to be taken. Waiting for the food to arrive. Waiting for the check to be brought and then processed.

But that's not our only challenge when it comes to eating out. Sometimes Kai talks too loudly. Sometimes he has trouble sitting still.  And sometimes he has a tough time dealing with busy, chaotic environments. 

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Bad early experiences

When Kai was younger, we tried going out to eat a few times and always regretted it. The biggest problems usually revolved around waiting for the food to be served. One time Kai started complaining, quite loudly, that his food hadn’t arrived – and we hadn’t even placed our order yet. 

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We tried different strategies to keep him occupied. Some restaurants have placemats that kids can draw on, but Kai never was very interested in those. The most success we had was using the crayons they provide to write out math problems for him. There was nothing like a few challenging multiplication problems to keep him from noticing that his meal hadn’t arrived yet.

But even then, something as trivial as a broken crayon could set him off. And once Kai gets upset, it can quickly escalate into a full-blown meltdown. We can ride out the storm at home, but it's more problematic in public.  

Sometimes the only thing you can do is leave. 

Even when we got to the point where he would stay calm until the food arrived, we still could not relax. It was not unusual for him to eat just a few bites and declare that dinner was over. Then it would be impossible to get him to sit in his seat until the rest of us finished our meals. Usually, my wife would leave the restaurant with him while I tried to flag down the waiter to pay the bill.

After those early experiences, whenever we had to eat out, it was only at fast-food establishments where we could get our food quickly and leave before anything bad happened. 

Recently, as Kai’s behavior at home improved, we started to think about eating at a sit-down restaurant again. His meltdowns were fewer and less severe. He seemed to be better able to wait.

So we decided to give it another try.

An evening at Las Palmas

Before going, we tried to prepare him as best we could. His school has been using a five-point scale to teach him to control the volume of his voice. We told him that at the restaurant, he would have to use his number two voice, which was soft talking. We reminded him that he might have to wait for the food to arrive. 

He seemed excited about the idea of going to a restaurant. My wife and I, on the other hand, were nervous.

We went to on Central Avenue in downtown Highland Park. Its casual atmosphere was perfect for us: it was not so quiet that Kai’s voice would stand out, yet it was not so noisy as to make everything overwhelming for him. The tables were spaced far enough apart that we didn’t feel self-conscious about possibly disturbing other patrons. There was enough room for Kai to stand up and walk around every now and then without getting in the way of others. 

Most importantly, they brought chips and salsa to the table right away.  It was one of Kai’s favorite foods, and he did not have to wait for it. And those weren’t just any tortilla chips; they were great-tasting chips, much better than the store-bought ones he was used to at home.

Kai was a happy kid. 

After all the chips he had, we were surprised when he ate all of his taco as well. And that gave us enough time to enjoy our meals, too. 

I could tell by the smile on his face that he had enjoyed this experience. It was a treat for him. 

As we were leaving, Kai declared, “This is the best restaurant I’ve ever been to.”

And, you know something? Seeing him so well-behaved and happy, and enjoying the ability to sit and and eat as a family makes it my favorite spot, too.

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