Independent Gosport café offers £1 children's meals to keep eating out affordable
There is no minimum spend to qualify for the deal
A café in Gosport is keeping eating out affordable by offering children’s meals for £1, with no minimum spend needed.
Blake’s café on Gosport High Street sells a range of meals for under-16s at the low price with no additional terms to access the deal.
“We started it in the summer holidays, like a lot of other businesses do,” said owner Natasha Stone.
“I wanted it to be accessible to everyone without there being any limitations. It is a way of showing people who we are and trying to stand out from the other similar promotions that are about without having to have a minimum spend or only offer it for a certain amount of children.
“The feedback was really, really good and there were loads of people accessing it, so we just decided not to do it just for the holidays and we just decided to keep it as a permanent fixture in the café.”
The £1 menu has a range of meals including sausage and chips, ham and cheese toasties and the cafe’s best seller, chicken nuggets.
Ms Stone said: “I'm just really careful about what goes on to the menu. We look at things that maybe are used day to day in the cafe every day that we don't have to worry about expiry dates on or we use things that aren't like perishable items.
“So you know, a lot of those things would be like sausage, chips, peas, you know, things we can keep in the freezer and things that we use day to day. So we just have to keep it practical and then we just, you know, I just review it every now and again.
“I mean we had hot dogs on. I took those off for those reasons. You know, you open a tin of hot dogs, you've got to use them in a certain time frame. And then it then becomes more expensive than what it's intending to be.
Blake’s has received amazing feedback from its customers for keeping the menu going.
“People are just shocked that they can come in and order food without having to spend a certain amount of money,” said Natasha.
“We've had teenagers that come in just with their group of friends and they will have a meal and that’s really nice. There's no plans for it to go anywhere. It's done so well.
“We may not make any money on those meals, but like the footfall that we've generated from it, just like the chatter about it, is amazing. I think part of the reason that we kept the offer is, I think it was a busy Saturday and I'd looked out into the café from the kitchen and every table was full of families and we'd sold so many of these meals and it just felt really nice to see the café so busy and everyone so happy.
“I know that like lots of those items are maybe not of the best nutritional value, just because they're the cheapest things to make. But we do have our winter specials menu coming in soon, so we'll do spaghetti Bolognese, we'll do tuna pasta bake, or we might do roast dinner day. Those will also be inclusive of the £1 children's meal.”
Blake’s also offers a refillable jug of juice for £1 to accompany the meals. The children’s menu is available at the café for under-16s from Monday to Saturday.