Is it ok to order off the kids menu as an adult?

[ColdLasagna99]

Lighthearted! Slightly inspired by the other ongoing restaurant/takeaway threads.

I don’t have a massive appetite due to my meds. (I love food and cooking - I just genuinely can’t eat as much as I used to.) At a chain place, I will quite often get a kid’s meal, which is the right portion size for me and obviously is about half the price of an adult meal. I will only ever do this in chains and when I am with friends they’ve never cared. For example, Nando’s does a great kid’s meal, and I will order drinks, extras, sides etc. Only been slightly reprimanded once. I’ve been a waiter in a chain and I wouldn’t think twice about putting the order through.

I know if everyone did this, they wouldn’t make any money, but I genuinely don’t finish my plate most of the time! On the plus side, when I order a normal portion do get nice leftovers for lunch

They cant offer half a portion for half the prize. In a restaurant you arent just paying for the food you eat. You pay for the chef, service etc. They cant cut that in half.
they do offer some dishes sometimes as starters or main. But if the main is £20, then they usually ask for £15 for half or something like that.
i wouldnt order kid menus, because they usually arent very appealing. I get just a starter or when i go out with friends sometimes we share a main. This is probably not better for the restaurant money wise. But restaurant dont really make their money off the food. Order 2 glasses of wine with it and youre fine.
if you get a kids menu with tap water, then thats pretty rude.

I wouldn't order off the children's menu but often order a starter and a side in place of a main course or a couple of the pubs locally are happy to do half portions on many of there dishes.
Most of the kids menus I have seen have an age limit of 12.

Just ask the restaurant if its ok when you order. Easy peasy.

You don't understand the costs to the restaurant of providing a meal. Do you think it costs half the amount to cook the meal, clean up afterwards, wash the plates and cutlery, take up space in the dining area? Of course it doesn't. The cost of the actual food is only a small part of the restaurant's overheads.

But the restaurant would have the same number of covers, but those would be lower value. The food is reduced, but the staffing bill, rent, energy costs, insurance etc. hasn’t, so they have the make the shortfall from somewhere.

If you order sides and extras why not just order an adult meal?

Interesting!

Sorry, maybe sides is a bit misleading - in the Nando’s example I will get a kids meal, adult soft drink and maybe get some extra halloumi. To be fair, I haven’t eaten out in a while, so haven’t tested the theory.

I don’t do it in nicer places or independents. We are talking about the local Hungry Horse or Wagamama, for example. I do explain it to the staff as well and only had an issue once.
I’m not doing it to be a cheapskate, I prefer a smaller portion because of my meds. I also don’t really care about the (already large) profit margins of chain restaurants.

Agree with all of this.

Children's menu choices are rarely appealing to an adult, surely. Some places are great, but chicken nuggets and chips, under seasoned pasta? No thanks.

As a rule, I would say that no, this isn't okay. I also don't really understand why you'd want to - kids menus are all very basic pizzas, macaroni and cheese or nuggets.

Partly because they're a loss leader for a restaurant and there to encourage full paying adults to come in. Order a starter or a side instead.

Menus often say for under 12 for kids

tho agree the size dd5 had the other day did a meal at brewers

starter main pudding think for £7

Incidentally, a Marcus Waring restaurant was doing a tasting menu for kids a few years ago which me and DS went to. 100% the kids tasting menu was a loss leader for them - I think I paid something like £17 for his. Mine was £45. The drinks were insanely expensive and his portions were only slightly smaller than mine and the food difference between his and mine was quite small.

We had a lovely meal out and a fantastic experience but I suspect the bulk of any profit they made was on the drinks and, to a lesser extent, my meal.

I also don’t really care about the (already large) profit margins of chain restaurants.

What makes you think any restaurant is making large profits. Restaurants, including chain ones, go under all the time. It's very, very tough to make a profit at all, and even more difficult is adults go around ordering non profit making kid's meals.

Fish fingers and beans - twice

But the main costs at restaurants are staffing, utilities and rent? Taking a few potatoes off a plate doesn't reduce these costs to the business. When you eat out, you are not just covering the cost of the food, but are paying for the opportunity to sit there and eat it.

I also don’t really care about the (already large) profit margins of chain restaurants.

I think you're over egging the profits of chain restaurants. Many have closed down or gone into administration over the last few years. Chains definitely have benefits of buying power etc, but individual stores can't economise and adapt in the way that an independent can and so their group-wide costs can be very high. Low custom in a few stores can have a huge impact.

But even if they are super profitable, I don't understand this attitude. They provide a service. You decide whether or not you're willing to use the service, and pay for it. Attempting to screw them over by ordering a kids meal seems weird.

Some places also offer a smaller-appetite portion for adults. Try asking if you can order a main course in a starter-size. Or, one course to share between two.
Both work.

Now that modern portions are following the US pattern of " huge enough to leave half uneaten" I really dislike that waste (and I dislike even more, taking the leftovers home to eat warmed up tomorrow).

Of course you can.
It's better then ordering nothing or ordering more then you need and wasting loads of food.

Our daughter does this she is 30+ we rarely go out togther - she is very petite and a snacker but has the childs dish plus adult soft drink and adult sweet so they dont mind
Me and my wife are slim and both pre-diabetic and often big portions and food left over and daughter has some of that as well but personally I'd be too shy to ask.

If she's waiting to hoover up your leftovers, that doesn't sound like she has a particularly small appetite?!

I'd never thought about it before, but if this is 'a thing' now, I wonder if a lot of places deliberately add a strong kiddy theme to the children's meals as a two-pronged approach to also deter adults from doing this. If it's just a smaller portion of what's on the adult menu, I'd guess that adults with more limited appetites are far more likely to go for that, rather than if they had to order 'Billy Badger's Munch-Time Fun Wow-Burger' - that comes with a colouring sheet and crayons - for themselves.

It doesn't cost half to only serve half the food.

Say a fish and chips (full size) is £12.
Costs:-
PRODUCT
£3 fish
£0.5 chips
£0.10 mushy peas
£0.10 lemon
£0.10 tartar sauce
COOKING
£0.50 fryer heating and oil
£0.10 dishes (wash, replace damaged ones)
STAFFING
£0.80 chef
£0.10 pot wash
£0.5 wait staff
OTHER
£0.25 costs of ordering and delivering (Internet, paying delivery suppliers etc)
£0.25 utilities and other costs of running a business

So if you serve half a portion, you only actually save half under the PRODUCT section. It still costs the same in all other areas.

(Clearly I don't know the exact costs for each line, but am using this to demonstrate that there's way more that makes up a plate of food than the cost of the food product, and these don't change if you serve a smaller amount.

I'm the same in terms of appetite as you OP, but I've yet to come across a kids menu item that I really fancy (maybe because I generally like really spicy food!). As others are suggesting, I tend to look at the starter or side menus and just ask that it's all brought out together.

Having said that I just looked at the Wagamama kids menu and that'd do me fine if you can add extra chilli...

I often do

The only restaurant I get the kids menu is MacD's when I get a Happy Meal. The actual kid (13 year old boy) more than compensates and I think MacD's can cope with this.

Elsewhere, if I wanted to order from the kids' menu I would ask if it was OK.
Otherwise I'll get a couple of starters.

You can order whatever is on offer. Don't give it a second thought.

Have you seen the clip on After Life where Gervais takes his nephew for tea at the cafe and tries to order the kids meal? So good.

I always ask if I can order a small kids meal. If they give even the slightest hint of negativity we go ( and husband) elsewhere. For clarity, he always has a starter and main from the adult menu.