When did it become acceptable for a man to eat at a restaurant while wearing a hat?

June 12th, 1993.

@wundayatta according to Wikipedia, nothing significant happened on June 12th, 1993, unless, of course, that’s your birthday. In that case, you really aren’t old enough to be here without your parent’s consent.

Probably because there’s no practical benefits or reasons to not wear a hat in a restaurant. Manners for the sake of manners tend to die out. But then again, most people still say “bless you” despite the fact that we know sneezing doesn’t cause a person’s soul to escape…

I understand what you mean, but I also don’t care that much. I think the restaurant also matters. If it’s an Applebees, it’s expected lol.

Have you ever seen someone take off their hat in a restaurant, revealing an oily nest of clumped, crusty hair and dandruff flakes, and just wished he would put his hat back on?

Well you were raised, the way my husband and I were raised. So dated or not, I have to agree. But, that’s not usually my first priority when I answer the call of hunger.

When did it become acceptable to not fart and burp at the table to signify that the food was tasty? When did common decency and manners disappear?

By hat do you mean a baseball cap? By restaurant, do you mean the really upscale ones as well as The Olive Garden?

@Ron_C This is not the sort of thing that is published in Wikipedia. You might find it in the “Unofficial History of the De-Hatted: the Rise and Fall of Tonsorial America,” Balled State Press, 2006.

I figure they’re hiding the fact that male pattern baldness is starting to set in, or they did not wash their hair today. Why else would you wear one indoors? To keep the bright lights from giving you a sunburn? To keep pepper away your face?
Want to know the biggest reason? It’s because their dates don’t ask them to remove it.

@wundayatta “Unofficial History of the De-Hatted: the Rise and Fall of Tonsorial America” good answer but there were not google hits on that either.

@gailcalled by hat I mean any kind of hat except a turban or yarmulka and by restaurant I mean everything from McDonald’s to 5 star New York establishments.

@LuckyGuy Good answer. But, shouldn’t he just remove it?

@LuckyGuy I especially like your answer. Women have always been a civilizing influence on men so this means that they are falling down on their job.

@Ron_C No hits???? NO HITS????? Well that’s just plain silly! Wanna know why?

Because I made it up!

See! Google ain’t indexed my brain. Not yet, anyway!

@annewilliams5 Sure he should remove it. But, he would if his date refused to go to the restaurant with him looking like a slob. (And didn’t have sex with him later)

@Ron_C Yep. Women have much more power than they think. I’ve said it before – they should only date/mate with guys that they’d be proud to show to their parents.

@wundayatta thought so. It sound good though.

Around the time Jimmy Carter took office and we inherited Billy as First Brother.
Damned Liberal Democrats (or is that redundant?).

@rojo
Democrat is a party affiliation, liberal is a political ideology, they are not the same.
Unless you mean “damned” and “liberal democrat” that is redundant.

I don’t understand what the big deal is; it’s a hat.

@Facade: Indeed

@Facade I don’t think it’s a big deal anymore. I think it’s a personal preference. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer anymore.

@Ron_C You were in the Navy? Didn’t you have to take your cover off?

If you knew how many hats I have left in diners over the years you wouldn’t ask this question.

I do take my hat off most places, but I don’t at fast food joints or bar and grills.

This question reads as a first world problem.

Right around the time we realized that hat etiquette is actually a horrible, unreliable way to separate those who are decent human beings from those who aren’t. This time happened to coincide with the time in which we realized we had bigger problems to focus on.

@LuckyGuy You assume that all men would remove these hats if women asked. And that all women want the same things in men.

It’s an absolute bleedin disgrace, they’ll be letting young ladies in next with their deep plunging cleavage enhancing necklines & those oh so teeny weeny skirts that ride seductively above the knee, revealing a well shaped thigh &...........ahem, “who serves pudding?”

@ragingloli that works for me.

It is the result of poor toilet training.

@annewilliams5 “You were in the Navy? Didn’t you have to take your cover off?” Of course, I believe that I mentioned that in the questions. The point is that I followed the same rules before I joined the Navy. We called it “manners”.

@Ron_C I agree with you, it makes me crazy when folks don’t remove their hats at dining establishments. I make my children remove all head gear before sitting at the table because like yourself and @annewilliams5 I was raised that it is the polite thing to do. While I understand @DominicX‘s point about manners for the sake of manners fading away, I don’t think it necessarily should be that way. I think there is something to be said for opening the door for a lady, putting a napkin on your lap, using the correct silverware, and removing your cap at the table. It shows respect for your fellow diners. And for the record @Aethelflaed I do not use hat etiquette as a barometer to measure character, I just consider the removal of a hat at the table to be a thoughtful gesture.

@SuperMouse But, that is measuring character. Someone who doesn’t do it is then, at least a little bit, thoughtless.

@Aethelflaed how did I know you would argue with me? It is a little bit thoughtless in my opinion. do I use that to judge the entirety of his/her character? No, just that single incident in the restaurant, with the hat.

@SuperMouse But everything you mentioned has a practical purpose except taking your hat off. Opening the door for someone means they don’t have to do it, it’s a convenience thing. Putting a napkin in your lap means food can’t get on your clothes. Using the correct silverware just ensures the most efficient means of eating. But taking your hat off? What does that do for anybody?

@Ron_C: “When did it become acceptable for a man to eat at a restaurant while wearing a hat?”

I think the answer lies in the fact that the question is puzzling to me. It might as well be, “When did it become acceptable for a man to eat at a restaurant while wearing a blue shirt?” It appears arbitrary and bizarre to someone who didn’t grow up with the tradition. And I can’t think of any legit reason why this hat rule would have even existed in the first place.

@tom_g and @DominicX I just read at chow.com “The reasoning was that a man’s hat was designed to protect him from the elements, so it might be wet or dirty…” When considering the debate from that perspective, there is a practical reason for a person to remove their hat during a meal.

@SuperMouse – I guess that makes some sense…maybe. I suspect that there may have been some men that were not wearing hats, however. Were they allowed into a restaurant with wet hair? What about getting caught in a rain storm without a rain jacket? Your shirt is now wet.

I guess these were different times. The practical reason appears to be gone, and in its absence, I can’t see why we’d want to continue it.

@tom_g we might have to agree to disagree here. Many of the baseball caps I see are just plain filthy and it makes perfect sense to ban that kind of filth from the table. It is fairly common practice to launder clothing on a regular basis so we can guess that the now wet shirt has been washed in the fairly recent past. The cap that is soaking wet? Probably not so much.

I usually do not wear hats except when I’m working. It is very rare for me to wear a hat in a restaurant. However it doesn’t bother me when I see other guys wearing hats in buildings and I don’t know what the big deal is. As far as common decency goes I didn’t know this was an obligation for men only. I’ve always equated common decency with how you treat others regardless of their sex, gender, race, ethnicity, etc and not whether one plays the part of their gender role more accurately.

I think @wundayatta‘s date is wrong, it all started to deteriorate when Magnum PI made wearing baseball caps by adults the “in” thing to do. And the way manners change over the years. My mom would never allow us to wear a hat in the house, period. I don’t know if the world is a better or worse place because of it. I am surprised though, at sporting events here in Australia when the nation anthem is played, many men do not remove their hats then, nor do people stop talking. Has it come to that in the USA as well? My husband always removes his hat during the anthem and most his age do as well. It seems that younger males do not bother.

It has never been acceptable for a man to wear a hat while eating at table.

@rooeytoo I think @wundayatta‘s date is wrong, too. Bad @wundayatta!

LOL!

@SuperMouse SM good enough for me.

Manners are the lubricant of civilization. As you can see, today, when courtesy and manners erode, society erodes. We have people shooting each other, congress cannot work together for the good of the country, commentators make racist and ignorant remarks about everyone from the President on down. I expect that Rome was like this at the end of its empire also. We see the same problem in the defunct Soviet empire. Criminals and oligarchs take over and civilization declines.

To those that say removing your hat is just an obsolete custom, I ask what replaces this simple gesture of respect? We have kids dropping the F bomb at the supper table, we have gangsters terrorizing passengers on subways and public transportation, women open their own doors, all of this irritates, and abrades society and separates us from our neighbor. Other than reinstating common courtesy and basic manners, I have no suggestions to improve our civilization. It is really a shame and a loss.

Trust me. Rome didn’t fall because people stopped taking off their hats in restaurants.

Rome fell because it bankrupted itself trying to maintain its borders. The entire Empire was funded by constant expansion and conquest. Once it ran out of easy prey to conquer and loot, it started to run out of money. Sounding familiar? Just Saiyan.

@DominicX No, it didn’t fall because of them not removing their hats, helmets, tiaras, masks, shrouds, or crowns. But removal sure helped them eat more efficiently.

@DominicX of course Rome didn’t fail because of hats protocol or manners, or even common courtesy. Those things are just a sign of the decline. It failed mostly as described by @ragingloli .

By the way Great Answers for all of you!