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Fatwa CenterTaking One's Family to a Fancy Restaurant
Question
I wish to take my wife out for our anniversary to a fancy restaurant but all of them serve wine. What are the scholars' sayings in this field? (We will not drink wine and we will not sit close to people who drink it).
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
A Muslim is not allowed to sit at a table where wine is served. Ahmad narrated from ‘Umar 
and At-Tirmithi from Jaabir that the Prophet said: “He who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not sit at a table where wine is served.”
So, a Muslim is not permitted to eat in a restaurant where alcoholic drinks are sold and consumed, because doing so is a sort of enlarging the number of corrupt people, showing pleasure with what they do, as well as other negative things. Yet, if you are driven by forcing necessity, then you may sit at one of the tables that does not contain wine, or you may choose a time when no such beverage is present in those restaurants.
Ibn Qudaamah 
said: “If an invited person knows that the hosts have something unlawful (such as prohibited food or drink, or music) which he does not see or hear, then he may attend and eat.” [Ahmad]
This is as far as eating in a restaurant that serves wine is concerned, as for families eating in a restaurant, if the restaurant has a family section where they may sit without anyone seeing them, then there is no harm in that. Otherwise, it is not allowed to go to such restaurants.
The reason behind prohibiting this is not because of the gathering of men and women under one roof in a restaurant or a shopping center, etc., for this is not forbidden. Men and women used to be all in the Prophet's mosque under one roof. Al-Bukhari narrated from Sahl Ibn Sa’d who said: “Men used to pray behind the Prophet with their garments tied to their necks as children do. Women were told not to raise their heads from prostration until men sat.”
Ibn Hajar said: “Women were forbidden from raising their heads from prostration lest they might see any part of the men's ‘Awrah.”
The actual reason for which we prohibit that, is because women are usually obliged to expose their faces and relax while having the meal, in a way that non-Mahram men might see something of her body that should not be seen. Yet, if such deterrent matters could be avoided, which is a rare case, then there is no harm in that.
Allah knows best.
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