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87 BE CHILD-FRIENDLY
Children are, of course, a key market in their own right.
However, their parents are equally important, and yet many service
companies do not provide very well for parents with small children.
Amazingly, some retail clothing chains put the children’s clothing
upstairs—so that mothers with pushchairs or towing toddlers find
it almost impossible to visit the children’s department.
Being child-friendly might mean more than just providing a
family room or putting fish fingers on the children’s menu. Some
businesses go a great deal further—with excellent results.
The idea
Blue Kangaroo is a London restaurant that is truly child-friendly.
The restaurant management decided early on to center everything
around the children—which, as any parent knows, is pretty much
where the parents have to be anyway.
Downstairs in the restaurant is a play area that is monitored on
closed-circuit TV. Parents can eat upstairs, away from the noise
but still able to check on their children. Alternatively, there is an
eating area next to the play area where parents and children can
eat together, before the children go back to playing and the parents
enjoy a dessert or coffee.
The children’s menu recognizes that many urban children have
sophisticated eating preferences: all the adult food can be provided
in child-sized portions, but even the dedicated children’s menu
has fish goujons (rather than fish fingers) and salmon fishcakes.
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