Because, duh, that’s the Senior menu
One of my favorite restaurants - a diner / comfort food type place - has eliminated the children’s menu and replaced it with a “smaller portions” menu — downsized versions of the regular menu dishes, available to both kids and adults.
I like it because standard restaurant portions are way too much for me, and TBH, because of the nature of the menu most of the food is kid friendly.
I understand the whole issue with picky eater kids, but the children in my extended family are, in general, not picky eaters and they LIKE real grownup things on the menu.
Then the issue becomes paying for a bunch of full sized meals that are going to mostly go to waste, or to make the kids that actually want salmon or a spinach salad get a hot dog or chicken nuggets because it’s cheaper and the kids menu doesn’t have the “grown-up” items.
The auteur chef in every movie about high cuisine disagrees with you.
Stranger
That’s why their stories have three acts so they can learn the true meaning of stuff 
Disclaimer - I don’t have kids, the closest being my niece and nephew who I see once a year roughly. So my perspective will be as an adult who may be eating at a restaurant where others have kids.
From the restaurant’s POV, most of the stuff they offer on the traditional kid’s menu is dirt cheap to make/offer, and even at kid’s menu prices, they probably still profit (looking at fries and chicken fingers especially that are probably mass market frozen options tossed in a fryer briefly). So low effort, medium profit, and not much space in freezers for the just in case - not something they worry about spoilage/turnover losses.
As @kenobi_65 pointed out, successful restaurants are making decisions based on their market, and they aren’t fools, so I seriously doubt they are being harmed, and if the math changes, they’ll phase it out for “lighter fare” or half-sized portions, which inevitably are about 75% of the main price (touched on by @Ann_Hedonia).
From my, or my fellow diner’s childless POV, if it keeps your kids happy, along with your old cellphone or their tablet, I’m all for it. Much better than having freaking out crying kids spoiling our rare meal out.
I’m 100% onboard with the adults offering (sometimes semi-forcibly) a child a taste of their own entree. That’s how I learned which dishes I might get more adventurous on as I grew up, and while I wasn’t the picky eater of some reports, I wasn’t adventurous with foods until high school.
Last, I’m not going to rag on the kids too much no matter what. I, along with most people I know are going to select from a smallish selection of “I’ll probably like this because I like that” selections MOST of the time when I’m going out. Especially at slightly upscale (in price at least) eating out, few people can tolerate rolling the dice on complete unknowns on a menu once you’re throwing down $30-40 a plate for food.
If someone else is paying, or I’m going with a friend who knows my tastes, that’s when I’ll experiment when I’m eating out. Otherwise, there’s tons of stuff I want to try, but that’s for making at home. Some stuff turns out great from the get-go (my recent shrimp and grits), some is fine but is going to need tinkering to suit my tastes, and some is fine for the experiment but not worth doing again, and of course, some is a disaster that you eat a few bites of to make sure and make something fast from the freezer because it was a colossal failure (in taste, preparation, or mis-match of preferences).
The stuff on the kids’ menu is very inexpensive for the restaurant to prepare. The restaurant makes less money off of a kid meal compared to what they can charge for the rest of the menu, so they’re going to offer food they can make fast and cheaply. And parents wouldn’t be happy paying more for kid-size portions of the adult food that the kids end up not liking.
When my nephew was small, we ended up at a restaurant that offered a child-sized cheese pizza. He asked if he could also have black olives and mushrooms on it, and the restaurant was happy to do so.
I would be happier if more restaurants would offer smaller portions of their more popular dishes, which would work for children, seniors, or anyone who’d like to eat less and/or have space for dessert.
We can and do try to get our (15 yr old) to eat from our plates when dining out.
Our style is also very much to share each others’ food, swapping plates and tasting at will.
If she likes something we are eating, we will share with her.
And it’s not always literally mac n cheese or chicken nuggets either - it might be a simpler/blander dish from the menu - maybe a butter chicken vs a goat curry for example.
My partner and I very much enjoy trying new dishes and foods, and it’s not always practical for us to include the demon spawn in what we’re choosing as she likes less flavourful food - at times like this, then absolutely we’re ordering a burger n fries or battered fish from the menu
And this pisses me off sometimes. There are many times I have gone out with someone and not really wanted a big meal, I would have been happy just to have chicket nuggets and fries while they enjoyed their expensive meal. I end of getting a salad or some soup that I really didn’t want because it was cheaper than a full course meal, but still over priced for what it was.
I am happy that McDonalds will sell me a happy meal. It’s usally has better choices than the regular crap they serve.
I think it should be kept in mind that the kids probably didn’t pick the restaurant, so it’s rather unfair to condemn them for not wanting to eat the type of food served there.
Or they’ll just go hungry for the duration of the meal, or stick food in their pockets and pretend they ate it (I did that), or throw up.
I was a picky eater as a kid (and still am, really), and when I had to go off to a school camp for a week I ate virtually nothing for all but one of the days there because none of it appealed to me. Had a bad time when they finally served something I found appealing and I gorged myself, nobody having warned me of the dangers of eating a large meal after fasting.
Point is, don’t bet they won’t skip the meal rather than eat something they don’t want.
Perfect comeback!
Couple of things - I really wish more restaurants had a smaller portion option , both because my kids generally ddn’t want to order from the kids menu when they were young and because my appetite has gotten much smaller since I started taking Truicity. At home, I just get two meals out of one, but if I’m away that doesn’t work so well (espcially if the hotel room doesn’t have a microwave.
But I also think there’s been a change in either children or parents. I like to cruise and in the Facebook groups there are constantly people complaining about kid’s menus in specialty restaurants. It has burgers, hot dogs, pizza etc but there’s always someone complaining that their kid doesn’t eat anything on the kid’s menu and why don’t they have the the only thing their kid will eat - grilled cheese, chicken nuggets , spaghetti and meatballs ( even sometimes when the menu has chicken tenders). It’s not that the kids can’t find anything to eat anywhere - they can often get those items elsewhere (complimentary restaurants or buffet) but not in the steakhouse/French restaurant etc. I don’t recall even people with picky kids doing that 30 years ago , expecting not only a kid’s menu but for it to have a specific item.
You know the menu is just a list of ingredients and the way the kitchen prefers to prepare them, right? Any kitchen should be able to provide a grilled cheese sandwich to order, and if they give you that “no substitutions” bullshit just take a page from the Perfect Master of Not Taking Any of Their Bullshit.
Strangert
Maybe not if it’s the grilled cheese most picky kids eat - hard to imagine a French/Italian/Chinese restaurant having white sandwich bread and American cheese.
My kids while not particularly adventurous when young still tired of fries and nuggets. Many restaurants have a good variety of appetizers/starters, and sides, which often appeal to kids. Me too, sometimes that’s all I’m ordering.
It’s when they’re older eyeing the surf and turf, King crab, or filet mignon on the menu, I’m thinking whats wrong with macncheese?
My solution to this when I dined with young pickey eaters was to tell them to just order fries and desert. I didn’t care what they ate as long as they were not there fidgeting while the adults ate. No kid ever turned down that offer, and were actually quite happy to know that they could do that.
Why force kids to eat something they don’t care for? Many kids don’t like a lot of things (I certainly didn’t when I was young). They grow out of it, or they don’t. Who cares? It’s not the restaurant’s job limit their choices.
If they’re your kids and you are concerned about their food choices or pickiness then I guess it makes sense to have opinions about the children’s menu. Just being an adult diner who is vaguely mad that a kid might come in and eat some chicken tenders three tables over feels pretty weird.
This. Restaurant dining is frequently an expensive treat (compared to eating at home) and is meant to be relaxing and enjoyable. Fighting with a child or testing their resolve in public is not a good experience for you or the other patrons. I do not wish to hear a battle of wills while I dine.
I’ve raised kids - that’s not my experience. And even if you feel you could win a battle of attrition with your kid, most parents will give in long before the child does. Give them their tots, M&C and grilled cheese sandwich and let everyone be happy.
Yes, this exactly. When my two kids were younger they were notoriously picky and vegetable-averse. The battles to try to get them to eat their vegetables or anything more exotic than nuggets or mac & cheese were legendary. I used to sometimes do things like grind up cauliflower into a powder in a food processor and add it to biscuit mix just to ward off diseases of malnutrition like scurvy. A restaurant is not the place to have those battles. We used to pick restaurants specifically based on their having a children’s menu with something the kids were willing to eat.
Incidentally, my 19 year old son’s palate is very sophisticated now, and his cooking skills are 5-star. Still won’t eat broccoli to this day, though. My 22 year old son still has more or less the palate of a 5 year old.