Why can’t adults order from the kids menu? 🍟🚫🍔
Economic necessity or moralistic humiliation ritual? (with Kate Lindsay)
We’ve got a very special episode this week, on a topic pitched to us during our initial “press run” around when we first launched the show last year. We spoke with Kate Lindsay’s Embedded newsletter and she regaled us with a story of being excoriated for ordering off the kids menu at a dine-in movie theater. So, why can’t adults order off the children’s menu? Personally, I like adult foods and portions, so we had to have
join us to talk us through her dilemma.
(Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Others)
Hearing her tell it, and never one to yuck anyone’s yum, I do understand the frustration of the kids menu. Why would a restaurant show me they’re capable of making a delicious and adorably small offering of chicken nuggets, only to restrict it to those fortunate to be 12 years old or younger? Are these restrictions an economic necessity, a moralizing judgment, or something else? We speak with a few industry insiders to learn the history of the kids menu and put these limits to the test.
A few relevant links:
Elevated costs continue to pressure restaurant profitability (National Restaurant Association)
Feeding the Kiddie: A brief history of the children’s menu (Michele Humes, Slate)
“No Tax on Tips” is an Industry Plant (Eyal Press, New Yorker) — Insightful on the nefarious side of the “other” NRA…
And if you liked this episode, check out this one from the archive:
Let us know what kids menu items you wish were socially acceptable for adults in the comments, or if you have an idea to help settle the economic issue at hand.
Have a question you want us to tackle? shoot us an email at mannynoahdevan@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at (860) 325-0286.
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If it’s a cost thing (paying for kids menu items instead of more expensive adult menu items causes restaurants to lose money), how does this square with happy hour menus? I go to a local place for tacos for example. Tacos are $4.50 each during non HH, but are $2 each during HH. Usually places require buying a drink to buy off HH, but an import beer is like $6 with a dollar off during HH. Seems like these places would also struggle with HH menus?
It was all good until the last bit where ya'll state that it'd be fair if it was half the cost for half the food. That only works if the price was only for the food, but in fact the price incorporates all the costs incurred by the restaurant, ie rent, salaries, utilities, marketing, insurance etc. So a large percentage of the price of your burger is actually operating costs, the ingredients only some of that, and a very small percentage of profit (it's why street food costs less, they don't need to pay for as much brick and mortar & service overhead). So by halving the food for half the price, you would definitely be putting them in red, and even more so if the restaurant is full and they're giving up fullpriced menu items for half portions/price per table. Also, my conjecture of why portion size [in the US] is generally so big, it's probably to make up for the perception of how much value you ought to get for price... and given ingredient cost only being a percentage of that cost, this allows them to override your idea that the bill is high compared to eating at home by being generous in volume (why else make soft drinks so huge? because otherwise you'd be like, I'm paying 3 bucks for 300ml of Coke?!-- when in fact that low ingredient Coke is subsidizing all the rest even if they give you a gallon of it to make you "happy".)