SHARON Pa. Quaker Steak & Lube is asking: Won’t somebody, please, think of the parents?
While countless kids-eat-free deals proliferate throughout the restaurant industry, the Sharon-based casual-dining chain is “trying to fight the sea of sameness” and offer a free adult entree with the purchase of a Coop’s Crew kids’ meal, said Bob Mentrek, Quaker Steak & Lube’s senior vice president of marketing and promotions.
“We just wanted to try something different, and nobody’s doing this,” Mentrek said. “There are so many people doing kids eat free, and we wanted to put a twist on that program. So we took lower-food-cost items and offer it to the parents. We wanted to take an off night and run with it and drive some traffic.”
The parents-eat-free promo is a limited-time offer from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday nights now through Oct. 26. Parents may choose from a free All American Cheeseburger, GTO Gyro, single orders of Buffalo wings or boneless wings, or a Low Rider Boneless Salad. Children must be part of the chain’s Coop’s Crew loyalty club for their parents to take advantage of the deal, but they may sign up during the meal. There is a limit of one free parent’s entree per family.
The promotion is in test at company locations in Cleveland; Sharon; Wheeling, W. Va.; Austintown, Ohio; and at a franchised unit in Greenville, S.C. If the offer proves successful, Mentrek said Quaker Steak would consider rolling it out to the entire system of 38 units, some of which are express variants in arenas and stadiums.
“The nice part about having only 32 full-size restaurants is that we can deploy quickly,” he said. “We would intend to blow it out through the system right away.”
Quaker Steak already has successful longstanding offers on typically slower nights. The chain’s all-you-can-eat wings on Tuesday nights has become very popular with younger consumers, Mentrek said, and its Bike Nights on Wednesdays attract hundred of motorcyclists every week.
The 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. time period ensures the appeal to families, Mentrek said. When asked if the promotion would bolster or cut into traffic for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” Mentrek pointed out that those football games are a different daypart altogether and represent a “tough sell” anyway to guests because the broadcasts tend to go too late for people needing to be at work Tuesday morning.
Quaker Steak also hopes to drive membership in its Coop’s Crew kids’ club, which currently has several thousand members, Mentrek said.
“The more this gets kids to drive their parents to our restaurants, the better to increase comp-store sales and guest counts,” he said. “Monday night is a daypart that needs help and a day of the week we want to develop.”
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].