Taking the family out for dinner at a restaurant can be a fun activity for parents and kids. But what about taking your kids out to fancy restaurants for fine dining? In this episode of The Lab, Daddy Clay talks with Shawn Cirkiel, chef and owner of Parkside, located on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. Also a dad, he tells us why going to a gourmet restaurant is great for your children, and he shares his philosophy of cooking. Learn what kind of food and menu he recommends for other dads. If you have thoughts about taking kids to upscale restaurants, drop a comment on this video or let us know at DadLabs.com. DadLabs Ep. 674 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Clay: Welcome back to The Lab. Today we're in downtown Austin at one of the most recognizable addresses, Sixth Street, at the cool new restaurant Parkside. Today we're going to be talking with the chef, owner and dad Shawn Cirkiel. So there's a huge debate online right now. This is obviously a gourmet restaurant. The cuisine here is upscale. Is it okay to bring kids to a restaurant like this?
Shawn Cirkiel: It is. It's important. It's important not just to have good food but to learn how to interact, learn their manners. All those types of things. And you don't learn that by being at home or only going to places where they can go crazy. As a parent, when you have a newborn, you don't want to go out because it's stressful and all this stuff. But of course, as a parent, the easiest time to take your kids out is when they're locked in a caddy. You just put them down and go. And if you start like that young and they just progressive up, they have no problems with it. We have two kids, me and my wife, and we bring there everywhere.
Daddy Clay: So tell me a little bit about the philosophy of cooking here at the restaurant as it particularly pertains to kids. You don't have a kids menu?
Shawn: No. What we do overall is we essentially are just an American restaurant or modern American and what we do is we source from a lot of different farms, a lot of different ranchers And we just kind of treat things right, and do them right, and cook well. That then translates to what we do with kids. We do french fries and macaroni and all these things. And we always have pasta. It's all fresh, it's all homemade. We make everything in house. And, you know what, kids magically find enough to eat. Parents have almost been spoiled by just going out and saying chicken strips and macaroni when surprisingly enough, most kids will find their way one way or another.
Daddy Clay: Well that was our experience here. We ate here with our kids and we had a fantastic meal. And what I love is the kids had to work their way through the menu, reading all the different ingredients, all the different offerings on the menu, and finding something that works for them. And I think that's a good experience rather than going to like kids ghetto on the menu and choosing nuggets or hot dog.
Shawn: It's an out. But it's important I think to socialize kids and to expose them to different foods and different environments. And it allows them to grow up and be rounded.
Daddy Clay: How about picking a restaurant? To somewhere that's not fast food. Obviously, budget is a huge part of that. But how do you pick a place?
Shawn: Well one of the things I think is having a good experience. Having people that know, having a good experience there. I'm always hesitant to take the plunge with kids that have never been somewhere. And then the other thing is that it's important for you to know how the dinner's gonna go. What I mean by that is somewhere that does food quickly, and efficiently.
Daddy Clay: What would be on the menu of that night at home that you're cooking that you think a non-chef dad would be able to do?
Shawn: The one that we joke about is that we have at the restaurant is the fried egg sandwich and it's like the perfect meal. And it's perfect on the go whether it's you as a dad coming home late from work or getting up in the morning. You toast the bread, do eggs overeasy with bacon and cheese and it's perfect. It's the perfect meal. You can hold it. You can carry it with you. It's funny, it always comes across good. And also if you've been drinking too much the night before it's good too.
Daddy Clay: That's definitely a great handover cure.
Shawn: I think it's it is what it is. It's at least better than having them not be here and only be at Denny's.
Daddy Clay: Yeah, although there's things to be said for Denny's.
Shawn: Oh, I love IHOP. That's why I said Denny's.
Daddy Clay: So thanks to the chef and the whole crew here at Parkside. If you're in Austin, Texas, you really should stop in for a fantastic meal whether you're got the kids with you or not. So here's the question of the day - upscale restaurant and kids, yes or no? We want to hear from you. You'll hear back from us. All at DadLabs.com. So join the conversation there. Thanks very much for joining us here in The Lab.