Good manners really do pay off. As Tom Landis, the franchisee of two Dallas-area Texadelphia restaurants, has recently proved. He’s giving polite children a free meal, provided they ask for it themselves and use the all-important “please” or “por favor.” Kids meals are already half-price after 4 p.m. at Landis’ two Texadelphia franchises in Dallas and Irving, Texas. But with the difficult economic climate, he thought he could do something more.
Landis began the promotion in the beginning of March after seeing his own 2-year-old learn to talk. He hopes it will coax kids out of their shell. “I’ve kind of seen a lot of parents where they come in and they’re trying to get their kid to order and the kid’s just kind of hiding behind mom’s dress,” he said. Texadelphia operates 19 restaurants in Texas and Oklahoma serving “The Original Texas Cheesesteak.” “He’s doing the right thing at the right time,” says Rich Waring, the president of the Quintessence Corporation, which franchises the Texadelphia restaurants.
And the polite kids deal is winning raves from parents. “I’m getting a ton of e-mails and just people stopping me in the parking lot and saying ‘Hey man, that was really cool. My son, boy you just should have seen him beam that he said “please” and he got the meal free. Gosh he pointed out that when I ordered I said it nice but I didn’t say “please.”‘”
Nation’s Restaurant News reported that the promotion is good for one free kids meal per adult, but Landis says he’s flexible. “I don’t want to have a hard-and-fast rule,” he says. “Whatever we need to do to make them happy when they leave, then that’s what we’re going to do.” Landis operates four pizza restaurants in addition to his Texadelphia restaurants on Greenville Avenue in Dallas and MacArthur Boulevard in Irving. He says he wants to make the Texadelphia polite-kids-eat-free deal a “cornerstone of my restaurants.” And it might pop up soon at other Texadelphias as well.
Comments
ATO
July 20th, 2009 - 3:56:57 PM
The great thing about the kids ordering the meal politely is that they feel a since of accomplishment. They ordered their own meal very politely and with that pride, parents will have an easier time getting the kids to eat it all....very quietly.