Lisa Simpson
Sep 9,2009
In: Finance

In Its Struggle for Survival the Restaurant Business Is Offering Kids Free Meals to Lure in Parents

kid-eating

The recession has badly dealt with the restaurant group. It is now stretching itself in its struggle for survival by offering free meals to kids to trap the parents. Parents are avoiding eating out but they are being tempted out now that meals for their children will all be on the house.

IHOP is about to unveil its plans of offering meals free to the kids all seven days of the week for the forthcoming month. The move taken by a national chain of restaurants is one without precedent. It is a good indication how times are tough for this $566 billion industry. The operators say that for the 22nd running month traffic has been low – as per the findings of National Restaurant Association. More families are not going out but staying at home. Visits by families accompanied by children have gone down by 5% for the year that ended in June.

Other restaurant chains have also caught on to the idea fast – Fazoli, El Torito and also Ikea. McDonald’s of Louisville is giving out Happy Meals to the children free every Tuesday night with the purchase of each adult Value Meal.

Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College, professor of psychology, said, “Free is magic. It will seduce people into eating out who shouldn’t”.

Some of the adults have become so excited about the free meals for children that they are celebrating by buying drinks and desserts – in fact spending more than what they would have spent on the meals for their kids. One website (MyKidsEatFree.com) is keeping track of the success of this strategy. Many of the restaurant chains do not include in the free meal schemes the drinks.

There are more new deals entering the market. All of them require one adult to enter for each kid that eats free. It applies to children up to the age of twelve. The IHOP scheme applies to families who eat between 4 pm to 10 pm till 13th September. Carolyn O’Keefe its marketing head said, “We’ve got a full-court press on for families with kids. Families are looking for value.”

The Italian chain of eateries, Fazoli located at 251 sites expanded the kids-eat-free strategy beyond every Tuesday to include the weekends up to 30th August. Its CEO Carl Howard explained “If we have to give away something, I’d rather give away kids meals then adult entrees.”

El Torito is the Mexican chain stretching along the West Coast. It has started offering free meals for the children every Saturday till 3 pm. All have one aim – increase of traffic.