topic Re: Combo Meal Pricing in Restaurant Operations

Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 21:04:00 GMT

Hey everyone!

Is there a way to set up a combo so that when a Kid’s drink and Kid’s entree are ordered together, the price of the drink is reduced? If just the drink is ordered alone, it then it would be full price. I know this can be done with combo discounts, but I'd prefer to have it built into the menu items instead.

Right now, we include the drink with the kid's meal price and use a modifier for the beverage choice. However, we need a new solution because of recent health department requirements for kid’s beverages included with meals.

This is our current set up:

The overall price of the item includes drink, eggs, and meat.

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

nbunda — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 21:57:43 GMT

Hey Sayra!

I think I can help, as I have a few unique solutions built out for both Kids Meals and Combo Meals, both of which have items that can be ordered on their own. But just looking for some more info before I provide my answer.

Right now you have the Kids Classic Breakfast as its own item, and the drink choice is required within that item. What you're looking for is to break that item out into a separate kids entree/egg and kids beverage items, each with their own price, and then reduce the price of the beverage only when an entree and egg are also ordered?

Or are you looking to keep the Kids Classic Breakfast as its own item as shown above, but reduce the charge for the Kids beverage within this item, and then also offer the kids drink separately for full price without having the two beverage offerings being two separate items?

Or something else?

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 22:20:23 GMT

Hey Nick!

Currently all of the kid's breakfast items come with a drink, and egg and meat and then our kids lunch items come with a drink and 2 sides. However, the health department mentioned our kid drink selections don't fit the criteria. We discussed setting water as a default beverage but the still being able to sub for a different beverage. Our current service system is set to where servers ring in beverages first, and then our drink runners will prepare and run those drinks to the tables. However sometimes, a parent will order a kid beverage but then not actually order a kid meal, so then we have to go back and charge for that drink on its own.

What we're looking for is that when the kid's drink is rung in, it charges the full price, but once the kid entree is ordered, it'll reduce or remove the price of that drink. Our plan is to remove the current kid beverage mod group from all kid entrees.

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

nbunda — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 22:45:52 GMT

Awesome! Thanks for the info!

Unfortunately I don't think it can be done in the menu pricing alone, without a discount.

My recommendation would be an auto-applying BOGO Discount with the "Buy" item being a kid's breakfast/lunch item, and then the "Get" item being a kid's drink ordered separately. Set a fixed $ discount or a % discount amount to take off the separately ordered drink.

For the "Buy" item, you can choose to:

(A) no longer have a drink selection as part of the kid's breakfast/lunch item
(B) keep the drink selection, and add something like a "Drink Already Ordered" option for the beverage (only visible on the POS). If you go this route, you would add as a requirement for the "Buy" item on the discount that the "Drink Already Ordered" modifier must also be on that item.

Either way, set the discount to Auto-apply, and:

If you ring in the kid's drink alone, it will be full price.
Once the required "Buy" item is added to the check, the payment screen will automatically take the "Kids Meal Discount" off the individual drink.

Hope this helps!

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 22:51:35 GMT

I figured it wouldn't' be possible with the menu pricing alone, but I may look into the auto apply discount option.

Thanks for the insight!

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 23:54:19 GMT

Hey Nick!

I did a test with the BOGO auto apply discount and we are liking that option for dine in orders, but any suggestions on how to make it work for online ordering? If I recall, you can't use auto-apply discounts for online ordering?

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

nbunda — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 00:58:47 GMT

Unfortunately nothing clean enough for my liking. I have a discount code set up for my BOGO combos, but it's really only for Kiosk users where we can have proper signage. It would technically work for online orders though.

Aside from a promo code needing to be entered (a pain to inform guests), the best solution would probably be to go with option (B) above. Keep the drink selection on the item so that guests online can still select a drink within the Kid's breakfast/lunch item, for that lower price. Add a "drink already purchased" option to that mod group, only visible in store, and add that option as a requirement for the "buy" item on the discount.

Either way it's a bit funky. The whole solution affects product mix, seeing which drink is being ordered with which kid's items.

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

rcmck — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 01:03:44 GMT

How often do you get a kids beverage online by itself? Could you maybe just restrict the kids beverage menu group to inhouse only?

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 17:39:59 GMT

It's not often that a kid's beverage is ordered online. I think we'll most likely have to leave the current required beverage choice to each kid menu item but only make it visible for online ordering and third party.

Re: Combo Meal Pricing

Sdaniel — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 17:42:21 GMT

A promo code is not the ideal solution, but I think leaving the kids beverage choice attached to kid menu items might be an option as long as it doesn't violate health codes.

Thanks for your help! 🙂