Cater To Kids
Focus on the Kids within Your Restaurant – Unless you’re a high class, 18+ restaurant, there are going to be kids coming into your restaurant with their families, especially around the major holidays. Mom and dad want to be able to eat out and often that means taking the kids with them. If you appeal to the kids, it’s going to make it easier for mom and dad to want to return.
Below are some great ways to keep the kids busy and happy.
Focus on the Kids within Your Restaurant – Create a Fun Menu
You want the fun to be incorporated into the food as well as the menu itself. When a good paper menu is delivered to the table with a box of crayons, it has the chance to keep kids occupied for the entire time they are sitting there. This means they are less likely to be running around or making a lot of noise. Give them word searches, tic tac toe, and more on the menu and whatever you do, don’t forget the crayons.
In addition to keeping them entertained with the menu, you want to make sure that they enjoy the food. This is your chance to offer them something different than what you offer the adults. Burgers, hot dogs, and mac & cheese are amongst some of the most common items on a kid’s menu. You can stray from this a little bit, but you still want to make sure that kids are getting the foods that they want to eat. After all, if parents cannot go to your restaurant and ensure that their kids want something on the menu, they probably aren’t going to return, either.
Focus on the Kids within Your Restaurant – Train the Servers
The servers need to be trained to pay some attention to the kids sitting at the table. One of the biggest mistakes a server can make is to pretend as though the kids don’t exist. Parents want to make sure their kids are taken care of, and the servers who pay special attention are the ones who get bigger tips – and parents are more likely to come back again and again.
Focus on the Kids within Your Restaurant- Offer Fun at the Table
There are all sorts of ways to keep the fun going at the table. If you have wooden tables that aren’t in the best of shape, cover them with a piece of paper. This will allow the kids to color all over the table without damaging the wood itself. Bring in entertainers on ‘family fun nights’ that you host within the restaurant, such as a balloon animal artist.
There are plenty of ways to incorporate kids into your restaurant. You don’t have to have a kid’s menu, but if you do, it is going to bring in more families – and families are a big part of the restaurant industry. By taking the time to cater to kids a little bit more than you do now, it can make more parents happy and ensure that you are a part of their ‘eating out’ plans on a regular basis.