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This blog will help you understand how restaurants can appeal more to families with kids. You'll get...
Read moreKids can be picky about what they eat and make a scene when eating out because of their spunky nature. This is why families with kids will choose where to eat carefully to make their kids comfortable and avoid any troubles. As a restaurant owner who wants to attract families with kids, there are specific kid-friendly restaurant ideas you can implement. Let’s take a look at some of them!
- Kid-friendly Theme
- Decorate lighting
- Make Dining Settings
- Adult Plates For Kids
- Kid-Friendly Menu
- Kid-Friendly Atmosphere
- Kid-Friendly Attitude
- Kid-Friendly Staff
- Tea Templer
- McDonald's Playland
- Olive Garden Kids' Pasta Night
- TGI Fridays Kid's Night Out
- Little Caesars – The Great Kids' Pizza Giveaway
13 Kid-Friendly Restaurant Ideas
1. Kid-friendly Theme
This is the easiest way to attract families with kids and make them comfortable. Simply apply a theme to your restaurant. For example, if you operate a fried chicken restaurant, you can have images of fried chicken as wall decorations and even serve a fritter that tastes like fried chicken for kids. Another example is you can mimic street foods such as Siopao (Filipino steamed bun) and Pork Adobo (Filipino marinated pork dish) in your restaurant and serve them on skewers for customers to eat. At the same time, they wait for their orders to be served.
2. Decorate lighting
The best decoration for family-friendly restaurants is lighting. Place lighting at strategic locations in your restaurant so it will be easy for customers to find those places and enjoy the ambiance. You can also have the wall or ceiling area be a soft orange color to lighten up the atmosphere of your restaurant.
3. Make Dining Settings
Cute Dining areas are another way to make your restaurant kid-friendly because kids tend to be shy and will make a scene if they are uncomfortable while eating out. To enhance the atmosphere, you can dress up your dining area with cute decorations such as plush dolls and stickers with colorful characters. Your customers will feel at ease while eating out, and the kid in your child will surely enjoy eating at your restaurant.
4. Give away freebies
Eating with kids can be a fun activity, but it is expensive and requires you to pay for all the meals for everyone, which can be quite a bit, especially if you have a family of 4 to 6. As an alternative, you can invite and give away free food for children 12 years old and below to create a more comfortable environment for kids so they will want to come back to your restaurant again while their parents go outside to grab some food.
4. Adult Plates For Kids
If you are unable to give out free food for kids, you can at least lessen the burden of your customers by giving adult-sized plates and utensils that are smaller than the regular ones. This will enable kids to finish eating without wasting food. It also gives them the impression that they are big kids that can eat like grown-ups.
5. Kid-Friendly Menu
As the restaurant owner, it’s important for you to provide customized service according to what the customers need and want. For example, if you see a family with kids in your restaurant, remember that their main concern is their kids. The parents will prefer to have food that’s easy to serve and eat in a comfortable environment. So, it’s better for you to offer kid-friendly menu items that are easy to eat and don’t need many utensils or skills. You can find many ideas to create tasty food with simple recipes for kids on the Internet.
6. Kid-Friendly Atmosphere
In order to make your customers feel calm and relaxed while they are dining in your restaurant, it’s important for you to keep the noise level down. To create a cozy and kid-friendly atmosphere, you can put a lot of plants in the restaurant. Choose plants whose colors are not similar to colors that might be used in toys. In addition, you can also use soft music while customers dine to create a more relaxing atmosphere for kids.
7. Kid-Friendly Attitude
When it comes to convincing families with kids to visit your restaurant, you should have an open mind and a friendly attitude. To give your customers a warm feeling from the very moment they step into your place, it’s important for you to greet them warmly and sincerely. Customers will feel more welcomed and happy if you greet them with a smile. In addition, you should try to speak to adults first regarding their order and then ask the kids if they know what they want. Showing a versatile attitude that fits all kinds of customers will help you attract families with kids easily.
8. Kid-Friendly Staff
It’s also important for your staff to be well trained to serve kids properly in order to attract families with kids as customers. Your waiters and waitresses should know how to serve food and drinks quickly in an easy-to-reach place for kids so parents won’t have any difficulties feeding them while dining in your restaurant.
9. Tea Templer
Just because you've got kids, doesn't mean that you have to forego a good cup of coffee or tea every now and then. Tea Templer is a tea store that caters to the whole family's needs by offering kids-friendly beverages like hot chocolate and matcha lattes.
10. McDonald's Playland
It is one of the great ideas to make your restaurant kid-friendly. You can add a playground in your backyards, the place where kids can play and entertain while their family is having dinner.
And since McDonald's is known for its fast food, parents can order their favorite fast food while their kids are having fun in the playground.
If you have people who live close to your restaurant and have children of the same age, this idea will surely be a great opportunity to spend some time with each other.
11. Olive Garden Kids' Pasta Night
Wait until there are families with kids in the restaurant, then you can offer kid-friendly food on a daily basis. On Tuesdays, Olive Garden offers kid-friendly meals that are offered for just $4.95 per plate and includes a snack and a drink.
It is one of the cheapest prices for kid-friendly food in the neighborhood. And of course, adults can have an additional order of their favorite food from Olive Garden if they don’t mind sharing it with their children.
12. TGI Fridays Kid's Night Out
TGI Fridays Kids Eat Free Program is perfect for families with kids due to its benefits: Kids can eat their favorite food at no charge when you purchase an adult entree.
If you purchase a kid’s meal and an adult entree simultaneously, you will receive a free kid's meal. You should bring your child to the restaurant when you make the payment.
The kids should be between 4-10 years old for this promotion.
13. Little Caesars – The Great Kids' Pizza Giveaway
Little Caesars has created a great program that enables parents to treat their kids to pizza and other Italian food, without paying anything for their children in return. They have started this program in 2011 on one of their biggest holidays: Winterfest! The cost to participate is $3 per child with no limit on how many children are involved in this promotion.
Final Words
As the restaurant owner, you want to make sure that your establishment caters to kids. This means making it a comfortable space for them and providing options on the menu they will enjoy.
We hope you have enjoyed this article about how to make your restaurant more kid-friendly! If you're looking for a way to create an inviting atmosphere that will keep the parents happy and their kids comfortable, then these kid-friendly restaurant ideas might be just what you need.
