Luxury restaurants and high-end apartment buildings are using the same strategy to draw in wealthy parents - and it makes total sense
- Luxury restaurants are entertaining kids with scavenger hunts and movie screenings so parents can enjoy their dining experience, reported Alina Dizik for The Wall Street Journal.
- Millennial parents are strongly influenced by their kids' requests, and restaurateurs are seizing the opportunity.
- Luxury apartment developers are also catering to kids by creating outrageous amenities for them in hopes of attracting millennial parents.
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Fine dining restaurants are catering to a new kind of customer: young kids.
From Minneapolis and Las Vegas to Washington, DC, and New Orleans, luxury restaurants are employing creative means to entertain kids so their parents can enjoy a $115 steak free of distractions, reported Alina Dizik for The Wall Street Journal. Tactics include everything from political scavenger hunts and movie screenings (complete with caviar and crumpets) to manners courses, play spaces, and turtle feedings.
David Portalatin, food industry adviser at the NPD Group, told Dizik that parents most likely choose a dinner location based on their child's request, which restaurateurs see as an opportunity. "Kids have a lot of power to influence their parents," more so than those in previous generations, Portalatin told her.
But their pull stretches beyond the luxury dining scene and into luxury real estate.
Millennials now comprise the largest share of home buyers - 36% - and they live in urban areas at a higher rate than any other generation, Business Insider's Katie Warren reported. According to a SunTrust Mortgage survey, more than half of homeowners with a child under the age of 18 said the child's opinion played a "major role" in their home-buying decision. For millennial parents, this increased to 75%.
And apartment developers in New York City hoping to attract those millennial parents are designing high-end residential buildings with kids in mind.
These buildings offer outrageous amenities just for children, including trampoline rooms, video game rooms, music studios, study rooms, teen lounges, separate pools, and "imagination centers" - a fancy term for elaborate playrooms.