Going out to dinner was once a major event.

People ate out.

But what they didn’t do was a lot of was “dining”.

By that I mean a place where they were linen napkins and an assumed dress code.

Coffee shops, fountains with grills, drive-ins and such were not “dining” out.

We’re not talking Top of the Mark, the Cliff House, or Frank Fat’s either

Instead, “nice” dinner houses where “common folks” and not businessmen or the semi-upper crust ate.

This, of course, was back in the Stone Age.

Think the era of the “Mad Men” back in  the late 1950s and early 1960s before the norm changed.

When dad decided to eat out it required his three sons to wear sports coats with a  tie. Or in my case since I was around 6, a bow tie.

Mom wore a dress and not pedal pushers.

Dad didn’t dress up per se for work. He ran a hardware store. That meant working man’s slacks like Sears sold and plaid shirt-sleeved shirts.

The only time he donned a sports coat except for trips to Reno, weddings, or Odd Fellows gatherings  was when he took his family to “dine out”.

As a family we dined once a month at a sit down restaurant that wasn’t in the coffee shop genre.

It was serious business.

And you dressed accordingly.

Rest assured we were well-behaved.

And that was from the moment we climbed into the back seat of the 1957 Chevy Bel Air station wagon before we pulled out of the garage until we returned home again.

Yes, there was a time when it was the norm that garages were actually used to park cars inside.

There was no silliness of horsing around allowed in the car or in the restaurant.

To be honest, being on our best behavior was prerequisite whenever we were in a restaurant even if it was a burger and fries joint or a fountain and grill.

This side trip in the time machine was triggered Sunday during a visit to Angelina’s Spaghetti House in Stockton.

Time machine may be apropos.

Angelina’s isn’t aimed at the country club set. Still, it has linen napkins and the perquisite fresh flowers in a vase on the table.

The atmosphere was subdued.

There are no TVs mounted on the walls. There was no flash. There was no loud chatter. You could carry on a conversation at your table and not worry about someone away across the room drowning it out.

And whenever a child spoke in a loud voice at a nearby table they were quickly “shushed” by adults dining with them.

What wasn’t a throwback was the dress.

Yes, I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

Most of the other men had long pants and casual shirts.

As for women in dresses, I don’t think there was a one.

Given my dad died in 1965 I don’t think he had gotten to the point in the endless wave of change  in what constitutes a civilized society that he’d be very pleased I went into a place like Angelina’s without a sports jacket, let along wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

My mom passed long after Prince’s “1999” had become the replacement for ballad on New Year’s Eve for “Auld Lang Syne”.

She’d likely have no qualms about the dress while at the same time would appreciate the fact children weren’t running around as if they were pumped up on candy with a 64-ounce Jolt Cola chaser.

Good food is always a must for a restaurant.

But to enjoy the entire  experience a place has to not channel Chuck E. Cheese.

One person who understood that such distractions  could destroy a good meal and a night out centered around dining is Laurel Fang.

Along with her husband Isadore they ran for years Isadore’s on North Main Street.

The food clearly was good.

But to be honest it was the atmosphere that made you want to keep coming back.

How much Laurel valued the dining experience was demonstrated one evening when a couple declined her requests to keep their kids from piercing the established decorum she actually asked them to leave.

There is — and should be — a difference in dining at a sit-down restaurant and McDonald’s although admittedly today the gap between the prices no longer seems as big as it once was.

It really isn’t that big of a stretch for adults to behave.

Nor should it be for kids.

Act up for a second and not remember where you were at would get you a trip to outside of a restaurant accompanied by one of our parents.

It did the trick.

It also worked when we took our grandkids out to dine even when they were under 5.

Behavior is learned.

One should expect a trip to Chuck E. Cheese to be an Excedrin Headache 101 experience complete with a bunch of stuff that barely passes as food washed down by sugar water.

But a trip to a restaurant shouldn’t have the feel of picnicking under the flight path of San Francisco International Airport.  

As the years have unfolded noise levels in many restaurants sound more like a crowded cafeteria or sports bar with the big game du jour blaring from 21 TV screens.

That in itself would be so bad if it weren’t for those who try to reach new highs in terms of  decibel levels.

You expect Applebee’s to be noisy but that isn’t a green light to overwhelm the place by being loud.

Do not misunderstand. Applebee’s is Applebee’s. You expect the noise. But what you don’t expect are those that are three tables away drowning out your conversation.

I realize this sounds a bit fuddy duddy.

But that is not the case.

It’s about being considerate.

Just because we are no longer pressured to dress  as if we are carbon copies of  a societal norm doesn’t mean it is OK to make dining out all about you at the expense of others around you.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com