Aided by illicit drugs I had been up until 6AM drinking Polish beers, soju, and white wine spritzers, so it was close to 1PM when I woke up, blisteringly hungover. I laid in bed for another 40 minutes or so trying to get my brain to work well enough to strategize some type of cure. Burgers came to mind rather quickly, and after a short debate it was decided we would go down the street to try The Heathcote and Star, a rather new local pub in the area.
It was quite a bit busier than I had expected, but we had no trouble locating a table, placed our order for cheeseburgers and beer cheese fries, and sat sipping our coca colas while we waited. Surveying the dining area I noticed a couple sitting near by with their new baby, and at the table beyond theirs I noticed another baby seated in a high chair amongst what I only could assume to be its legal adult guardians. It took a few minutes for it to fully sink in, for me to truly grasp the gravity of the situation, but the more I looked around the more babies I noticed. The place, it became apparent, was literally swarming with them. I counted 13 and was flabbergasted, and then the door to the rec room area opened and a woman pushed a stroller out with twins in it! The front door swung open and an actual 'gang' of fathers left alone for the afternoon reeled all their strollers in as well and began unstrapping and setting kids loose in the dining area. One of them, I shit you not, was wearing a shirt that said "Rad Dad". It was as if the pub had done an exhaustive advertising campaign in all the local maternity wards.
Now I'll come right out and say it, I don't care too much for babies, or anyone under 20 years old for that matter...especially hungover. I fully understand a new parents desire to day drink and how this establishment, for them, must be a godsend, a place where they can do so amongst their kind where their children are also welcome, but to the rest of us...it's a bit much. Now I know the deal, but I think a fair warning would've been nice, when I was ordering it could've been pointed out, "I don't know if you noticed, but theres a lot of babies in here today." Because, call me old fashioned, but I never thought of a pub as a place where you might encounter a congregation of nearly twenty of them. If you were taking your kids to the playground I think you'd like to be notified if there were almost twenty drunk old men hanging out in it, and I feel the same courtesy should be given in return.
That said, my burger was pretty good, not amazing necessarily, but it did get the job done. I would possibly return for another if I found myself in a similar state, but I might call ahead and ask for a head count on babies in the room before I started the walk over. Not to say I wasn't entertained by the absurdity of it all (I truly don't think I'd ever been in a place with that many babies at once before), but it wasn't so comical I'd care to have the experience again. read more