Children’s Menus: Using Children to Increase Repeat Customers
Children are the underrated decision makers of the family; and this market is under utilized and often untapped by restaurants. Children’s menus are often an afterthought, or subsidiary of a restaurants main menu, and are too predictable and bland. We can’t advertise directly to children simply because they’re not a part of our advertising audience. There is, however, one powerful tool you have to grasp their attention and make them want to return to your location, and that tool is your menus.
In order to grab a child’s attention you must stand out from the crowd; all children’s toys and advertisements are, big, bold and brightly colored, in an attempt to make them different and stick in the child’s mind. You don’t have to make your menus appear off the wall, but the content is a different matter. If your food and drink offerings for children stands out from the crowd then you have a good chance that the next time that child is asked where they want to go to eat for lunch or dinner your location will be the first one to come to their mind. Here’re some simple tips for upgrading your children’s menus to make them stand out from the crowd.
Drink Menu
Children are too often left with the limited options of soda, fruit juices and milk when choosing a beverage for themselves. Create some simple children’s cocktails which your servers can easily prepare utilizing the above ingredients and you have yourself a standout children’s drinks menu. Such beverages can include the likes of fruit punches, Italian sodas, fruit spritzers and floats. If these drinks are colorful they’ll also have that extra wow factor to them!
It’s likely that you don’t have a children’s drinks menu, and it is also likely that these new creations will easily fit on your current children’s food menu. These offering also have a chance to increase your bottom line because you can charge more for these beverages than you would a basic soda or glass of juice.
Food
Children’s menus need not be extensive; indeed, having too many options can complicated the decision making process for a child and make them feel overwhelmed; thus ruining their experience. Therefore you probably won’t want to add more than a dish or two to the menu. Yet, there are still ways to make your menu standout from the rest; with additions to current dishes.
Children’s dishes are often unimaginative -inline with children’s eating habits- so it is a good idea to still be able to serve these standard dishes. You can up the anti by adding some suggested additions such as adding chicken and/or vegetables to rice dishes, or bacon to pasta dishes. As afore mentioned don’t over complicate things for them, give them just one or two options on a few of your dishes. You may even want to include it in some dishes, but only do this with things that you easily remove -or just not put in- during the preparation of the dish.
If you please the children sat at the table you’ll please the whole party, helping to improve your guests experience. Giving your children’s menus just this little bit of thought can have you at the forefront of their mind when they want to go and eat somewhere, making their parents choice easier, and everyone in the party happy. Once you’ve captured the children with your standout offerings you could see the family returns again and again at the child’s request.
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