My family and I visited the Beefeater and Mr Men & Little Miss new menu launch last Saturday. We are mum, dad and two girls aged 4 and 2.
There were a couple of reasons we were keen to go the event. First of all, my daughter, age 4, lets call her Little Miss Sunshine, has been learning all about the Mr Men at school where she has just started in reception. Brilliant, I thought! Secondly, we have just moved to the area and are scoping out new places for family meals at the weekends. So far, we have ventured mainly to pubs / gastro food places, but have found that the children don't eat much as very little child-friendly food is normally available. So this seemed ideal.
The day did not disappoint at all. Our Little Miss Sunshine screamed with excitement when we entered the doors, greeted of course, by the real Little Miss Sunshine. We were able to get some lovely photos here. Unfortunately, Little Miss Tiny (DD2) was a bit overwhelmed by Mr Tickle and didn't want to be included, but hey she is only 2 and he does have very long arms!
The restaurant was kitted out perfectly for the event, we grabbed a few yellow Little Miss Sunshine balloons and spotted the bean bags near the reading area. The girls were keen to raid the collection and delighted at all the books of the characters that were there. It is quite nice browse the whole collection at once.
The girls did not try the face painting as they were a bit too bashful, but we did marvel at the creations that had been adorned on the older children's faces ("if only we were as brave...").
Meeting the author was fantastic. We sat near the front and got to see all of the great pictures he was drawing whilst we tried to draw our own. By this time, we had discovered the activity packs and magazines and found it easy to draw our own characters! At the end of the talk, Little Miss Sunshine took the opportunity to get Adam's signature on her own book. WOW! He even wrote her name and a message.
We had preselected our meals, so mummy chose was everyone was having in advance. It would have been nice to let the children pick as the menu was very inviting for children and perhaps they may have been tempted to try something new. I liked the idea of naming the meals for each character. I also liked that there were many 'add-ons' such as veg sticks that could be included in a meal. I always find variety and lots of little things helps to keep the meal interesting. Myself and DH had steak, while the girls had a Steak Burger and Poppin Chicken.
The meal did take some time to arrive as it was such a large guest party, but this did not bother us as there were plentiful starters, the Rosemary and Onion flatbread was especially nice. The girls at this point, were still engrossed in their activity packs, but were nicely surprised with the food when it arrived. Little Miss Sunshine ate all of the Steak Burger and Little Miss Tiny had a good go at the Poppin Chicken. The steaks were cooked to perfection, which I find rare these days (no pun intended), so I thought it was very good. The children's food was nicely presented, with good portion sizes. The Poppin Chicken was particularly nice, really chunky pieces!
Unfortunately, having been in the venue for several hours and it being post lunch, DD2, Little Miss Tiny was in serious need of a sleep and we had to leave not long after the meal. This meant that we were unable to stay for the Ice Cream Sundae making. I promised Little Miss Sunshine, that we could do this at home instead as I was keen to keep the momentum going!
The girls were completely inspired by the Mr Men party. Not only did Little Miss Sunshine spend the rest of day using the stickers and drawing the characters, we created a small book of our experience and took it into school on Monday to show her class, complete with the autographed copy of our book. Boy, was the teacher impressed! Our youngest daughter, Little Miss Tiny, has also since become the world's biggest Tickler which has been an ongoing source of amusement for us all.
So, in answer to the original questions....
I think Beefeater have made a great decision to tie up with Mr Men & Little Miss. They are irresistible to children and have timeless appeal.
The different activities for children were well planned. They appealed to different ages of children and gave lots of opportunities to find out more about the books and the characters. We will definitely buy the Mr Men magazine and probably some more books from the collection.
The new menu was great. There is lots of choice for even the fussiest eaters and it was good quality. The characters can provide a backdrop for the meal and make it extra fun!
The restaurant staff and PR guys did a great job accommodating everyone.
We are sure to visit the Beefeater again at the weekends to try out the new menu again and would recommend it to family and friends.