OREANDA-NEWS. August 11, 2009. OJSC Rosinter Restaurants Holding has analyzed its corporate restaurants’ sales figures for the last months to identify the preferences of their most demanding guests of preschool and early-school age, reported the press-centre of Rosinter.  

The survey was based on the data provided by around 300 restaurants based in 16 cities of Russia under the brands of IL Patio, Planet Sushi, T. G. I. Friday’s, American Bar & Grill, 1-2-3 Cafe and Benihana featuring the most popular food of Italian, Japanese, American and Russian cuisines. The audience of Rosinter’s casual dining restaurants includes middle class or upper middle class people, executives and middle managers, entrepreneurs, and parents with children. The existing trends in contemporary kids’ casual dining preferences are easily traced in the restaurants operated by Russia’s market leader.

According to the data collected by the company, people with children account for 30% of IL Patio’s audience. The survey of the company’s restaurants and some other major operators’ outlets featuring Russian and home food shows that Russian cuisine is not falling behind. The trend featured by the chains of this category is very much alike with that displayed by IL Patio. The existence of quite a broad audience may be attributed to two main facts: firstly, Russian food is well known – we get used to the dishes in childhood, and secondly, as a rule, the range is wide and the prices are affordable.

Japanese restaurants used to lag well behind “the Italians”, 2 or 3 years ago (20-30 %1), but are currently gaining more customers with children. In Planet Sushi, for instance, this part of the audience has increased to 28% in 2009. According to customer polls, the tendency stems not only from the popularity of Japanese cuisine, but also from people’s growing desire to have a varied, balanced and quality diet. 70 %2 of respondents among Planet Sushi guests mentioned that Japanese food is rich in minerals and vitamins, iodine in particular, that is essential for children who live in a metropolis. Parents tend to choose hot items for their little ones: soups, noodles, rice with a variety of ingredients. Raw seafood is not so far something adults would eagerly share with children.

In T. G. I. Friday’s restaurants that offer American food, guests with children account for 20% of the audience. A lower percentage, as compared with their Italian and Japanese ‘counterparts’, is due to the concept of these restaurants which mostly targets youth and groups of friends. Parents with children usually choose more peaceful lunchtime to come to T.G. I. Friday’s. It is at lunchtime – from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. – that parents most often take their children to any restaurant, whatever the concept. Saturday is the children’s favorite day to eat out. Sunday rates second.

Kids, despite a wide variety of options, still tend to choose traditional food popular with any generation – pelmeni, potatoes, pizza, pasta, or shish kebab. The unrivaled leaders, however, are chicken-based items. Sales leaders in different restaurants are:

Planet Sushi
Children’s Meal – Bento with chicken - 66%
Children’s Meal – Bento with salmon - 34%

IL Patio
Potato Smiles (mashed potatoes) - 37%
Granny’s Pelmeni - 15%
Turtle Pizza - 11%

1-2-3 Cafe
Chicken shish kebab with potatoes -20%
Pelmeni (children’s serving) – 18%

T. G. I. Friday’s
Kids’ Burger - 32%
Kids’ Alfredo Pasta / Fettuccini - 23%
Kids’ Burger Steak - 11%

American Bar & Grill
Arni Chicken - 37%
Pork fajitas - 21%
Fish Nuggets -18%

Benihana
Little Samurai (chicken fillet, beef, teriyaki vegetables) – 54%
Chico (teriyaki chicken fillet) – 43%

As for drinks, kids’ favorites are milkshakes of different flavors - strawberry, vanilla&pomegranate, banana&coconut – as well as apple juice. Ice cream remains their favorite dessert.

The internal analysis of kids’ offerings in Rosinter restaurants shows that the proportion of orders of kids’ menu items is rather small. Customer polls show that parents often prefer to order main menu items for their kids in order to be able to monitor their choice and make the diet more varied. Hence, in IL Patio and T. G. I. Friday’s, adults add fresh salads to the kids’ favorite pizzas and burgers, and in 1- 2-3 Cafe and Planet Sushi, they try to make their kids have some soup.