Mini-Rant: No Kids menu for you, your kid is too old.

Complaints Corner
1
Can't find a place to post this so maybe this will work here...

So my wife and our 10 year old went to eat lunch at a Coop Restaurant in Landquart. Wife wants a normal meal and our little one wants the kids menu with chicken nuggets and fries. Lite kids meal that generally fills her up (4 nuggets and fries). Here's the paraphrased conversation...

Wife: "I'd like the Whatever Schnitzel meal for me and a Kids Chicken Nugget meal for my kid."

Chef: -looks at kid- "Is she 9?"

W: "No, she's 10."

C: "Sorry, Kid meal is only for kids up to 9 years old"

W: "Ommm, OK. Do you have an alternate meal with Chick Nuggets?"

C: "No."

W: "Well, my CHILD would like a KIDS Chick Nugget meal with fries like you have advertised."

C: "Kids menu is only for up to 9 years old. No exceptions. She'll need to order a normal priced meal."

W: "But you don't have anything that she wants from your normal menu."

C: "Sorry but can't do it."

Wow. I'm sorry, is this a local "must follow the rules" thing or what? This is kinda weak. What does is matter the age for the meal you want to order. If an adult wants the kids meal because they just want a snack, so what. If I wanted a Happy Meal from McD's for the burger and fries flavor and give my kid the toy, it's mine.

Wife said next time she'd have her not stand nearby when she orders. Hopefully it's not the same chef person. Am I missing something or am I coming off as an entitled parent? Just seems a really petty excuse to get someone to pay for a full-priced meal.

Opinions are welcome, thanks.

EDIT: Maybe this should have gone to the Complaints-Corner. Move move if necessary.

2
Tell them that she's 8.

Tom

3
Poor customer service on the server's part. It might have to do with poor management, where rules are more important than customer satisfaction. This doesn't always happen and it's embarassing that it did

Sorry to hear of your experience.

4
You should’ve feeding your child - or anyone else - with nuggets and fries...

5
When it's the other way round - your child qualifies for a child's price at an all-you-can eat buffet, we've found that restaurants have no qualms about charging the adult price when the child in questions eats more than the average child.

Seems like restaurants want it both ways...

6
Where do they do that? The places we’ve been to with such buffets charge CHF 1.- per year of the child’s age up to a max. Sometimes 12, sometimes 14.

I guess if the staff spot the kid taking mountains of food they would find it a bit suss because often it gets wasted but normally kids are only charged a nominal amount.

To the OP, the menu normally states the age limit for the kids menu on the menu itself. Just fib. Works the same when you want to get a 5 year old into the cinema; ‘Yes, he’s 6. Honest’.

7
Not here, to my (limited) knowledge. In Stockholm at a Chinese restaurant and in France too it has happened to us.

My kids are not allowed to pile food on their plates if they are not going to eat it. We expect them to eat everything on their plates if they put it on themselves. I can't abide greed.

8
Thanks guys, perhaps I could clarify some things...

First off, was NOT a buffet, so that tangent was not exactly related to the rant but ok. Twas a straight up set price meal plate of 4 nuggets and a handful of fries. Was not trying to cheap out on anything.

Secondly, it was a rare treat she gets sometimes. That and at least the chicken there was real meat, unlike many fast-food places with mystery cookie-cutter shapes.

Thirdly, I don't see how it would be the same is getting her into the cinema with a cheaper fare. The movie/cinema is a set "product" and the age is a variable. Thus, trying to get her in with cheaper fare on purpose would be cheating. The kids meal is a set price for a specific "product" (the kids meal). The normal/adult meal is a different meal altogether with a different price. Sorry, I kinda see where you were going with that but I don't see the analogy on how that was trying cheat the system.

Anyway, no big deal now anyway. Non-issue. Have a great day!

9
Well it was mainly to say, if they ask the age of the child and the limit of the kids’ menu is 10, just say he or she is 9. Sometimes you have to out-play them if they’re being sticklers for the rules.

10
Just be careful if your child is proud of her age, because she might correct you in front of the worker "No, I'm 10!!" If that's the case, have her go to the play area while you get the food.

Also keep in mind that while a fib here is perfectly acceptable to me, lying in front of your child regularly can teach them that lying is okay in any situation - even when answering your questions.

11
Yes, of course. My son would be mortified if he heard me fibbing in that way so you do it on the sly. No idea where he got his honesty-gene from...

12
The child meal is MUCH cheaper than other meal choices.

A portion of fries (which you can always get, by the way..) costs almost as much as the child meal. And restaurants having clear „age limits“ isn’t really something new.

Alternatively asked... do you argue with SBB ticket checkers why your 6 year old kid suddenly needs a (half fare) Ticket while it didn’t needed one till recently?

Yes, there you can lie just as with the Coop restaurant. But as others said already, sometimes honesty is a good thing to teach your kid

I did quite frequently got the Happy Meal at McD back in the time it cost 6.90 CHF and you could get a FiletOFish (or whatever it’s called) AND instead of fries a garden salad. Made a half reasonable, cheap and healthy lunch back in my student days. But no age limit there

13
If they break the rule for you do then then need to break it for every 10 year old who comesin? Usually in the menu it says the specific age that kids can get a childs meal up to, so if it clearly stated that it was 9 then what right do you have to get arsey with the restaurant if they choose to enforce it? If no maximum age was stated then it would indeed be confusing.

14

...or the ideal training for a career in American politics. They're looking for a new press secretary.

15
So if I sell you 10 apples but give you only 9, that's perfectly ok for you?

16

Yeah, I'm on the fence on this one. On one hand, it costs the restaurant exactly the same amount to provide the meal to a 10-year old as a 3-year old, and restaurants have child-pricing to entice families into restaurants who wouldn't otherwise come because it was too expensive for the kids.

On the other hand, it's their policy and they have the right to enforce it.

I don't like to waste either money or food. Our kids are young, and they can't finish a kids' menu by themselves. Our local, where we eat most weekends, knows this and actually proposed splitting one kids' menu between the two kids. Result? Less waste, less expense for us, and loyal customers who come back again and again. The pettiness smacks of a big corporation with strict rules, and a Swiss mentality where deviation from the rules is not in the norm (except in st2lemans's backyard ).

17
So, just buy the kid nothing, and give them some of yours.

Tom

18
The logic is that a kid's meal makes little or no profit and is provided as a loss-leader to attract the more profitable parents. The age limit is set to ensure that it's not taken advantage of, which would effectively cost the restaurant money.

So if an adult orders a kid's meal they're clearly cheating, or, not to put too fine a point in it, stealing from the restaurant. The fact that the 'adult' in this case happened to be only 10 is irrelevant.

Of course they might have been able to supply the junk food at the same price as a proper adult meal, but the complications of ordering and charging for it on an individual basis could be too much hassle, so I can see why they wouldn't have offered to do so.

19
Did they have nuggets on the adult menu?

20
The age restriction and its enforcement I find okay.

What baffles me is that they couldn't just throw 2 extra nuggets and 5 extra fries on a plate and charge a couple bucks more (assuming you wouldn't have cared about the price). Clearly both items were available, so what's the big deal?