Child’s play

It’s that time of the year again when the schools have let the children free and we adults have to deal with them for six weeks or more. It’s the time when we can collectively – this includes parents and child-free adults – moan about them clogging up the road and public transport, making too much noise and generally being rather irritating. I’ve two teenage children, but this does not preclude me from fully recognising this Armageddon scenario. 

Pubs and restaurants can be overrun with youngsters disrupting the calm of the typical working week and annoying regular customers to the extent that there must be a temptation from businesses to follow the lead of the growing number of outliers – like a couple of pubs I’d rather not name – and ban the little perishers from their establishments.

But let’s calm down and take a deep breath. The summer period should really be seen as a massive opportunity for hospitality companies to look after younger customers. The government’s temporary VAT reduction on children’s meals might be a prompt for businesses to take a look at their propositions for children, but even without this modest kicker, kids’ menus should be identified as a route to boosting trade over the annual holiday period.

This is certainly the view of Meaningful Vision, which reckons there is a move away from blanket discounting towards more targeted value mechanics, and that children’s meals are a perfect vehicle to deliver on this because they do not impact the adults’ transaction. Giving free meals to children on the back of the purchase of an adult meal is tried-and-trusted territory, and Big Table Group is among the throng announcing such an offer across more than 200 of its restaurants this summer.

It’s not purely about discounts and promotions though, because it can be just as much to do with having dedicated menus. I’ve never been a fan of overtly child-friendly restaurants (irrespective of free meals) and the world of nuggets. I guess I always wanted my pair to be treated as adults, so I’ve always been much more aware of places like The Cadogan Arms, with a concise kids’ menu that includes a £15 Sunday roast, and Cheneston’s restaurant in The Milestone Hotel, with a young person’s menu that has a great range of classic dishes at what look like the prices of adult meals from menus circa 2010 – with all the mains priced between £12 and £20. Never mind the kids, this is my kind of menu and prices.

As well as kids-eat-free deals, Bill’s is introducing a fully customisable children’s menu. Speaking at the Propel Operational Excellence Conference, recently Tom James, chief executive of Bill’s, revealed: “It changes the experience for kids being able to choose their own food with adaptable dishes such as burgers and pizzas. They can put strawberries on their pizza if they want!”

Summer is also an opportunity for operators to lean into developing greater loyalty among younger diners. On this front, Loungers is rolling out its Little Loungers summer passports initiative in collaboration with Cawston Press and childrenswear brand Frugi. It’s a simple mechanic of collecting points to unlock rewards like milkshakes and desserts, as well as gaining entry into prize draws. 

Those operators not convinced that pandering to the whims of younger consumers – and their parents – is worth the effort and prefer the scenario whereby children are neither seen nor heard should consider that their impact can be far reaching. With hybrid working patterns, today’s school runs are often combined with working in coffee shops, lunching and Zoom meetings on the move in hospitality venues ahead of school pick-up time.

Not only is this business lost without children in the dynamic, but there are wider societal implications from their exclusion from the social landscape. It fuels age segregation that diminishes the opportunities for intergenerational exposure, which helps with mutual understanding across generations and lifecycle stages. If we want children to learn the etiquette and nuances of behaviour in pubs and restaurants, then banning them until they are fully paid-up adults is absolutely not the answer.

And with births in England and Wales falling in 2025 for the fourth year in a row to their lowest level in nearly half a century, according to the Office for National Statistics, I’m hoping the world of hospitality can wholly embrace children while we still have them.

Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider

This piece was originally published on Propel Info where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. Beer Insider would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.