And if so, what’s on them? Smaller portions of the rest of the menu? Something considered more “kid friendly?” A package meal or a la carte?
In the US (at least in every part I’ve been in), fast food* and casual restaurants always have a Kids Menu. It’s usually priced as a meal, which comes with a drink (milk, soda and/or juice), an entree and a side dish. Many places will include a small, simple desert as well (although it’s not uncommon for deserts to be separately priced and ordered.) There’s a stunning lack of diversity in Kids Menus, across all sorts of cuisines. Whether you’re in an Italian restaurant or a Tex-Mex place, the Kids Menu always seems to have a choice of
burger
cheeseburger
chicken fingers or nuggets
sometimes there will be:
an tiny “individual size” pizza
peanut butter and jelly sandwich
macaroni and cheese or
grilled cheese sandwich
A restaurant with a cuisine theme will often have one offering of a small size of their cuisine - like an Italian restaurant might offer a smaller portion of spaghetti or mostaccioli with marinara or meat sauce - but the rest of the offerings will still be mind-numbingly consistent.
Kids’ Meals tend to be about half the price of an adult entree, and adequately fill kids up to about age 9 or 10. Most places allow you to order them for kids up to age 12 (“Ages 12 and Under” is often printed on the menu - I have no idea if it’s ever actually enforced, though), and then they’re expected to order off the regular menu.
Of course, even little kids can order off the regular menu if they want to. I hardly ever use the Kids’ Menu. Most of what’s on it isn’t appropriate for my daughter’s diet, so we usually order her an appetizer and a salad instead.
*Taco Bell made the news this week for deciding to take away their Kids Menu - the first major fast food company to do so.
In the UK, it’s similar to what you’ve described. Kids’ favourites at about half the price. A drink is not always included though. My son’s favourite is Pizza Express. I think the menu is £6.50 (about $10.00).
yes, they do - usually simpler, smaller versions of the adults menu, so hot dog and chips at a steakhouse, small pizza at a pizzeria, that kind of thing.
Honestly, seeing as so few people bought them, I don’t see this as a bad idea. They didn’t advertize them or give them toys, and the food was just stuff you could order straight off the menu. Well, maybe the desert was a smaller portion, but the entree was definitely the same.
Most kids I know would just get a taco or two, depending on their age and size. Or maybe a small order of nachos.
For Spain: kids’ menus labeled so, not very often (chains are the ones most likely to do that), but many daily menus include what’s jokingly called “the kiddie option”. In “the kiddie option”, the first dish will be rice or pasta with plain tomato sauce, the second will be chicken. There have to be kids who won’t eat that, but they’re few and far between.
In France I saw kids’ menus or a child’s section in the menu in some chains, but never in a non-chain restaurant (doesn’t mean there aren’t, my experience in French restaurants is very small but it’s recent enough to remember this). I don’t recall seeing them in individual restaurants in Italy either.
I was in a nice restaurant recently and overheard a family ask about a kids’ menu. The waiter explained there was none. The man wasn’t happy, and said it made it difficult to order a meal for his son. The waiter said, “yes. I believe that is the idea”.
I have never understood why non-fast food restaurants do not simply offer half-sized plates of everything on their menu, rather than have a specific kiddie menu with special items not found on the menu (e.g. chicken fingers).
My daughter loves salmon, so when we went out for fish when she was little, it was either the ghastly chicken fingers for $7.99, or a full-sized adult plate of salmon with a bunch of extras for $24.99 (she would only eat the salmon). I would have happily paid $10 to $15 for a half-sized salmon plate for her, and the kitchen would not have to prepare something special. Happily, she is a teen now and can easily wolf down the salmon and everything else.
I recon they have kids’ selections to placate picky young eaters just enough to get their parents in the door. Every kid likes chicken fingers, right? These kids meals are basically lost leaders - as long as the parents order normal meals, they can justify keeping the cheapo kids items on the menu.
Only time I ever got ‘special food’ as a kid was either when I was ill, or we were visiting someone for a large dinner and they had a kids table with a different menu. If I didn’t eat what Mom made for dinner I was more than welcome to go to bed hungry. Not all that many foods I actively dislike, and not that many that I am allergic to and avoid for health reasons.
I am baffled by people who let their kids order them around.
**snowthx **- I agree, but if I say more, it will sidetrack the thread into rant time, and we’ve had soooo many “picky eater” threads in the past, it’s gotten boring. Like chicken fingers.
Me, too. I’m not seeing the connection between that and kids’ menus, though.
snowthx, I suspect you’re right that the kids’ menus are loss leaders. While the restaurant may not want to go so far as to outright forbid adults from ordering from it, they would prefer it didn’t happen because they make little if any money that way. One way to discourage the practice is by only offering fairly generic food.
Families tend to like this because the kids can get something (a) cheaper and (b) that they may like more*, which lowers the overall cost of of the outing while keeping the enjoyment level the same.
The restaurants offer kids’ menus because they make no money at all off of a family that decides to eat somewhere else (or at home).
All kids are different, YMMV. Large-scale tendencies are what matter here, not individual cases.
Because you end up with kids who will only eat nuggets, hot dogs and hamburgers with catsup drenched french fries and the person at home who cooks will endlessly have to make the sprog a special meal or everybody will have to eat nuggets, hot dogs and hamburgers.
If the kid gets fed what the parents eat - like vegetables other than potato [my brother and I ate brussels sprouts, lima beans, asparagus and artichokes when our parents ate them] and learn to try new foods, then you won’t have them pitching a shit fit in a restaurant because they don’t serve nuggets and french fries.
Train the kids to have manners and politely try new foods, the people at the surrounding tables can have a pleasant experience. No running around screaming, throwing food or pitching a fit because they can’t have nuggets and fries. Heavenly.
