Why Are Children's Menus So Bad?

When I was a child, my parents found that I was never satisfied with a meal from the children's menu when they took me to a restaurant. Mostly this was because there was no salad. I have always liked salad, even as a child. Now that I have my own child, I am dismayed by the children's Menu at pretty much every restaurant. They are filled with uninteresting, not particularly nutritious food choices. Apparently children mostly eat macaroni and cheese, hotdogs, and other foods that I don't normally feed my child. These foods while lacking as a healthy diet, also wouldn't cost me $7 if I made it at home. I can buy an entire box of macaroni and cheese for under $1 on sale. At the restaurant my child is getting a small portion of that for $5 to $8. Since my son is two-years-old, my wife and I can usually feed him some of what we are having. I imagine soon that will be unacceptable both on the restaurant side and ours--as he begins to eat more as he gets older. In fact, once at a Ruby Tuesday the waitress made several remarks about how it is so nice when the children are small because you don't need to spend money to buy them a meal. After she repeated this four or five times it made me feel like I might not want to eat at that restaurant--as the implication was we were feeding our (at that time he was closer to one-year-old) child without paying for it.

So because of this, I will look at Ruby Tuesday's Children's Menu first. There are primarily McDonald's type fare on it. This means everything comes with French fries. The online menu does allow substitution of the fries and also a salad bar option. I did not notice these on the kid's menu when I was recently at Ruby Tuesdays, but perhaps it was on there amidst the pictures and puzzles. The online menu also has no prices.

The Olive Garden's Children's Menu has prices if you pick your local restaurant. For $7 you can get a small portion of spaghetti. Notice it is $5.79 until you "add a protein." Then they add $1.25 for that meatball (or other choice). The best thing is probably the chicken fingers with spaghetti and marina sauce. This is $5.99 and has no vegetable. Why would a child need a vegetable? Why would they want salad when they were kids (like I did)? Red Lobster's kid's menu has a single meat item (or Mac & cheese) and choice of orange wedges or broccoli. Salad is available but costs another $1.

I could continue with more restaurants and perhaps less expensive ones, but it could become a very lengthy blog entry. I did notice that Perkins kid's menu talked about substitutions but didn't give prices or tell what was available--except that pancakes were pictured. Pancakes and a side sounds pretty boring to me. When I feed my son, I like to give him a variety of foods. Huh? More than two things you say? Yes! I encourage him to eat and to try lots of different kinds of food! Sometimes what he didn't want yesterday, he will eat today!

Personally, I think if restaurants are going to charge $6 to $8 for a children's meal, they ought to provide a little variety. A drink and a cookie doesn't count either. I would like to see some fresh and nutritious food choices. Otherwise, I will limit the amount of occasions that I use restaurants to feed my child. I can and do make much more nutritious food for far less money--and I provide variety and creativity that is lacking at pretty much every restaurant I've been to.