00:00So what's an example of a restaurant that Tom might deign to go to, not just the McDonald's?
00:04Well, I was doing a lot of traveling around the city to kind of hunt down these adult happy meals.
00:09Oh, I'm sure.
00:09I parked at this place called Anne's.
00:10Retto said, get out the Amex and let's bring it up.
00:13I will probably be holding off on the red meat for a while.
00:16But Anne's on Steak Easy and Greenwich Village, that was this place that I parked at.
00:20You know, what really stood out to me is that these are not your fine, you know, value menu eaters.
00:27They are going for these fine dining restaurants.
00:30A lot of them work in finance.
00:31A lot of them work in tech.
00:32And they are really drawn to these predictable pricing.
00:35You know, you mentioned the toy thing, Tom.
00:37What's interesting, I think, is the adult version of this Happy Meal always replaces the toy with a cocktail.
00:43Ah.
00:43I think that's, you know, what makes them happy.
00:46But a lot of them really do say, you know, they would be interested in a toy, too, if that
00:49adult one would provide it.
00:50And these pictures are phenomenal.
00:51I think part of this, too, is when you talk to the restauranteurs, is they made sure that they wanted
00:56it to be really visually appealing so that people can post it to their social media.
01:00What was really fascinating is that a lot of these adult Happy Meals looked luxurious.
01:04I was talking with this one restaurant in D.C.
01:07They call it the Lobby Meal.
01:09Included in that was a glass of champagne.
01:12And it was branded with that Vogue, Vogue, Clicquot, you know, champagne branding that was really attracting the people.
01:19What's fascinating, and I'll do a shout-out to Michael's, which is just iconic, and also right across the street
01:25from our effort here, is it seems to me everybody's simplifying the menus.
01:30It just seems to be easier now to order than 12 pages of choices from years ago.
01:36Yeah, it makes things easier for the restaurant themselves because they only offer one or two things, right?
01:41There's not a whole lot of things you have to worry about with your supply chain and your suppliers.
01:44It's true. It's easier to offer these curated menus because a lot of the diners who I spoke with, they
01:50say that they face decision fatigue when they go out to eat these days.
01:54You know, you see that with line culture, TikTok and social media is just proliferating, all of these new restaurants
01:59to try.
02:00And sometimes people, you know, on a busy day, they just want to have the meal laid out for them.
02:04And some of these deals are hidden, too, right?
02:06It's not totally advertised. You kind of have to be in the know.
02:08No. It's this layer of prestige and exclusivity.
02:12It's like a club that if I spoke with one restaurant that was selling so many adult Happy Meals that
02:17they had to kind of pull it away.
02:19And now they still sell it to people who ask for it.
Comments