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Will a kids eat free night make you money?

Put in your own numbers. The calculator weighs the extra adult spend from new families against the cost of the free kids meals, including the meals you'd give away to families who'd have come anyway.

Your venue's numbers

Example figures for a mid-range family bistro are loaded. Change them to match your venue.

$
Main, drinks and extras, per adult, before tax.
%
Cost of sales as a % of adult revenue. Most Australian restaurants sit around 31–39%.
$
Ingredient cost of one free kids meal, not its menu price.
tables
Family tables that come because of the deal.
Fine-tune the assumptions
The usual rule is 1 free kids meal per adult main.
$
What families pay on a normal night.
tables
Your usual families on that night. They now get kids meals free too.
$
Paid drinks, dessert or a milkshake the free meal doesn't cover.
$
Leave at 0 if your quiet-night roster can absorb it.
Used for the per-night figures only.

Kids extras are costed at your food & drink cost %.

Family night docketPer week
New families (12 tables)
Adult revenue$0
Adult food & drink cost$0
Kids extras (net)$0
Free kids meals given (0)$0
Profit from new families$0
Families who'd come anyway (6 tables)
Kids meal revenue given up (0)$0
Extra staff$0
Net profit per week
$0
Pays for itself
$0Per month
$0Per year
0Break-even tables/wk
$0Profit per new family
0%Free meals as % of family bill
$0Net per deal night

Net profit by number of extra families

Weekly result as the deal brings in 0 to 30 new family tables. Your current estimate is highlighted.

List your kids deal free

How the maths works

A kids eat free deal only makes money when it brings in families who wouldn't otherwise have come. Those families pay full price for the adult meals, and you only give away the ingredient cost of the kids meals.

The catch is your regulars. Families who'd have come anyway now get their kids meals free, so you lose the full menu price of those meals. That's why the calculator asks for both numbers.

Profit per new family = adults × adult spend × (1 − cost %) + kids × extras × (1 − cost %) − free kids meals × kids meal cost Regulars' cost = regular families × free kids meals × kids menu price Net per week = new families × profit per new family − regulars' cost − extra staff

It works best on your quietest nights, when the kitchen and floor staff are rostered on anyway and every extra table is close to pure margin.