Parent’s Lured Into Eating Out With Free Kids Meals

In a sign of a still troubled economy, restaurants are now taking unprecedented measures to try and get you into their dining rooms; free kids meals. Sure, even here in Canada we have the occasional sign from Humpty’s proclaiming “Every Tuesday Kids Eat Free”, but now they are talking 7 nights a week at your local IHop, for the next month.

Visits to restaurants from families with kids have statistically declined 5%, and operators of restaurants reported a decline in customer visits for a steady 22 months, the National Restaurant Association reports. With these kinds of desperate declines, desperate measures are being taken.

It is important to remember that there are no free drinks offered with the meals, and if you really are trying to save a buck, don’t order sodas, desserts or appetizers. Ikea has their dollar breakfast, but we have found that you can start adding it up quickly when you purchase juice for the kids, and coffee for the adults. However, that meal still usually comes to under $10 for a family of four, so it is easily justifiable to upgrade. If you don’t watch out in a regular restaurant though, your bill can quickly skyrocket to the point where you are no longer saving money.

And that’s just what these chains are banking on. The rules are one free child’s meal for each adult entree purchased, and the child must be 12 or younger.

The ingenious little website MyKidsEatFree.com, is tracking all the offers out there, go and take a visit and scrounge up some deals! Go to the search, select your state and start saving.

Some of the deals to be found are:

•IHOP. The IHOP freebie deal is for families who dine in the restaurant between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. through Sept. 13.

•Fazoli’s. Fazoli’s has expanded its kids-eat-free deal beyond Tuesdays to include weekends through Aug. 30.

•El Torito. Already on the ball since this past January, the West Coast Mexican chain  of El Toritos has been offering free kids meals on Saturdays until 3 p.m.