Got nothing to do these holidays? Why not get the kids to ‘create a cafe’. This fun activity will teach kids how to plan, prepare and serve healthy food in a fun way (and possibly earn them some pocket money along the way 💲🤑).
Step 1: Choose a theme
Start by deciding what you want to serve in your ‘cafe’. Will your restaurant specialise in pizza or curry ? Or maybe serve dumplings or a sushi train for lunch or perhaps a brunch bar offering delicious pancakes on a lazy Sunday morning?
Step 2: Create a name
The next important job is to come up with a fun name for your ‘cafe’ or ‘restaurant’! 🍕 Archie’s Pizza Parlour sounds pleasing, 🍛 Cait’s Curry would be scrumptious or maybe 🌮 Max’s Mexican Taqueria would be taco-rific! Get your marketing hat on and come up with a catchy name to entice customers.
Step 3: Plan the menu
Browse through our recipes and plan your menu. If you need some inspiration, take a look at our menu ideas:
🍕 Archie’s Pizza Parlour
- Easy pizza – quick and easy and ready in 30 minutes! Even better, why not make a ‘Pizza Face‘
- Rainbow vegetable salad – get some colour onto the plate
- Fruit platter – a refreshing dessert to end the meal
🍛 Cait’s Curry
- Sweet potato and lentil curry – leftovers can be used in a wrap the next day
- Cauliflower and spinach dahl – so tasty your tastebuds will thank you
- Naan – a perfect accompaniment
- Fruit salad parfait – a delicious after-dinner treat
🌮 Max’s Mexican
- Guacamole and pita chips – a delicious starter option
- Mexican meatballs and salad – get your Mexican fix with this tasty meal
- Chicken burrito bowls – great alternative if you don’t feel like meatballs
🍣 Josh’s Japanese
- Pork gyoza – did you know that ‘gyoza’ is another word for Japanese dumplings?
- Vegetable gyoza – you can’t go past trying our veg gyoza too
- Rainbow sushi – a colourful way to get your vegies
🥞 Brianna’s Brunch Bar
- Banana pikelets – one word ‘AMAZING!’
- Easy savoury muffins – a delicious way to start the day
- Apple pie overnight oats – it will be like eating dessert for breakfast!
Need more inspiration? Check out our YouTube channel!
Step 4: Design the menu
Get creative and design up a menu, placemats and name tags. Download our menu template or make your own. Check out our menu for Archie’s Pizza Parlour for inspiration. You could even make your own chef hat – watch this video for simple instructions on how.
If you are business-minded, you could list the price of each dish on the menu and earn some 💲 for all your hard work!
Step 5: Set the table ready for customers
Depending on your theme, will you be setting the table with a tablecloth, placemats and serviettes or is it more of a casual affair? The choice is yours! Most important is the menu for your customers to peruse.
Step 6: Take orders from your customers
Grab your menus and get to work! Take orders from your ‘customers’, you might want to ‘up-sell’ the meal and add a special ‘berrylicious smoothie‘ for only $1 😜.
Step 7: Get cooking!
Be like a real chef and ‘mise en place’ – which means ‘get organised’:
- Gather your ingredients.
- Gather your tools – what saucepans, spoons, knives or cutting boards do you need?
- Get an adult to help pre-measure and prepare the ingredients.
- Put anything away that you don’t need before you start cooking.
- Get cooking!
Step 8: Time to serve and enjoy!
Plate your dishes and serve up.
Step 9: Clean up
Remember not to leave the dishes for the adults – that is unless they don’t pay up 🙂
