Earth Fare’s Family Dinner Night

The health-consious grocery store Earth Fare advertises its Family Dinner Night pretty well on Facebook, so I knew that kids eat free every Thursday night. This Thursday was their Halloween event, including a costume contest and free stuff for kids, so we decided to take Smalls. Smalls is dressing up as an eggplant for Halloween, so I figured a health food grocery store would be the perfect setting for us to sweep a costume contest. Now, if she’d been an ORGANIC eggplant, that would have just been pandering to the judges, but we’ll call her a conventional eggplant, just so we’re not kiss-ups.

Anyway, I’ve shopped at Earth Fare several times (most often when I have a coupon for something free with a $5 grocery purchase. And I can get Smalls a gallon of organic milk for a little over $5, which is decent for organic milk, so I feel like I would buy that anyway.) Oh, and they have great samples. I’m a sample junkie.  I used to be a big fan of Sam’s Club’s samples, but they’ve cut back; I blame the economy. But I’d never paid much attention to the restaurant area at Earth Fare. Turns out it’s just tables where you can eat the deli/salad bar/bakery food that you’ve bought in the store. We were a little confused when we walked in. But the staff were pretty helpful; they hooked us up with a kids’ menu form and explained the steps to get our meals. I’m going to explain it to you, so if it’s your first time there, you won’t look like bumbling rubes like we did.

1.  Fill out the kids’ menu form.
2. Return the form to the employee at the table in the dining area. They’ll give you a number and a bar code for the cashier to scan when you check out.
3. Go to the deli/salad bar/pizza counter/bakery area, and get your grown-up food and drinks. 
4. Wait for the pizza counter cooks to put together your kid’s dinner sack and put it up on the counter. 
5. Take all of your food and drinks to the regular cashier and check out. This was the best part, because we all ate for about $9. (Beardy and I had pizza that was really good, but probably the least healthy food there… Next time we’ll know how it all works and explore the deli/hot food case more.)
6. Go find a table and a highchair in the dining area and sit down and eat.

The kids’ menu is great, with nine entrée choices (five are vegetarian), four choices of sides (no fries in sight), six snack choices, and three drink choices. And it’s free on Thursday nights. On other days, it’s only $3.99. 

Oh gosh, a villian called High Fructose Fred? Way to be subtle, Earth Fare.





Overall, a $9 meal for three people (or two and 3/4 people) seems like a good deal. And the food is good.

Toddler friendliness ratings:

Atmosphere: 3 out of 5 booster seats. Bustling around in the deli/bakery section with various take out containers, bottled drinks, and a toddler wearing an eggplant costume was awkward. But highchairs were plentiful, and it’s family night, so there were TONS of other kids there, so we felt comfortable.

Food:  4.5 out of 5 booster seats. Earth Fare is trying hard to provide healthy food that tastes good, and it’s pretty good.

Find info about Earth Fare’s Family Dinner Night here: http://www.earthfare.com/FamilyDinnerNight.aspx

Download the kids’ menu here: http://www.earthfare.com/FamilyDinnerNight/~/media/Images/Itty%20bitty/IBB_BWmenu_Nuggets%209-10.pdf

And make sure you look at the comic characters that are valiantly saving the world from childhood obesity here: http://www.earthfare.com/FamilyDinnerNight/IttyBittyBites.aspx They’re cringe-worthy in a Captain Planet sort of way.