Dinner at a Discount – Restaurants draw families with the ‘Kids’ Night’ magnet

Ask any working parent about his or her greatest daily challenge, and the dinner frenzy inevitably ranks high on the list. Weeknights around the Capital City find moms and dads sprinting from carpool to extracurricular activities, leaving little time to plan, shop for and cook family meals at home. The race for time has many darting into local restaurants.

But eating out routinely can be expensive, prompting busy families to search for the best possible dinner deals. For a growing number, this means one of dozens of local “kids eat free” or discount nights.

It’s a strategy the restaurant industry has deployed regularly since consumers pulled back on nonessentials after the economy softened in 2008. By 2010, the national firm Baum + Whiteman, which issues an annual list of restaurant trends, declared that “kids eat free” nights would surge nationally. Indeed, many local restaurants have found that taking a loss on already cheap kids’ menus is a winning strategy for getting adults in the door, especially from Sunday to Wednesday when volume is lower.

Families have embraced the idea enthusiastically.

Part-time physical therapist and mother of two Kristi Boudreaux finds herself constantly in the car, shuttling sons Jack, 11, and Beau, 9, from school to athletic practices. Her husband Bobby, a partner with the architecture firm Crump Wilson, often works late, so Boudreaux frequently relies on restaurants.

“It’s a lot easier for us to just go out and eat after practices,” she says.

Las Palmas on Jefferson Highway is one of her go-to spots. On Tuesdays, the Tex-Mex eatery offers free kids’ menu items and includes a balloon clown.

“Even if they order an extra taco, you come out ahead,” Boudreaux says.

Maggie Howe, founder of the blog My Baton Rouge Mommy, says that a list of kids eat free nights was one of her site’s first features.

“To be honest, it’s one of the reasons why I started doing my blog three years ago in the first place,” says Howe, who knew that other families shared her interest in taking advantage of restaurant deals that weren’t necessarily advertised on websites or menus. Howe originally created a list the old-fashioned way: by scrolling through the phone book and calling restaurants directly. Since then, her members have updated the online list, which is organized by days of the week.

“I know for my family of five, and especially now with cost of food, we don’t go out to eat unless the kids are going to eat free,” says Howe. “It’s a nice little treat to be able to take them out.”

Howe, who was recently named among the area’s top three bloggers in the July Best of 225 issue, says she’s seen an uptick in kids eat free nights.

“I definitely think this is something that more families are looking for,” she says.