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Stew Lilker’s

Columbia County Observer

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Lake City / Florida News

Lake City Applebee's Unveils New Kids Menu with More Healthy Meals

Sunday Family Day: all kids LiveWell meals are $1.99
Free New Year’s Eve Toast for Kids

LAKE CITY, FL – With healthful kids meals and children’s nutrition remaining a top culinary trend for 2014, according to a new report from the National Restaurant Association (NRA), Applebee’s restaurants have announced a completely redesigned kids menu with 10 meals that meet the NRA’s Kids LiveWell nutrition criteria and more than 650 combinations of entrees, sides and beverages.

Kids LiveWell program:

The National Restaurant Association launched the Kids LiveWell program in collaboration with Healthy Dining to help parents and children select healthful menu options when dining out. Restaurants that participate in the voluntary program commit to offering healthful meal items for children, with a particular focus on increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables, lean protein, whole grains and low-fat dairy, and limiting unhealthy fats, sugars and sodium.

Through the Kids LiveWell program parents and caretakers get accurate information to help them make informed decisions about their child's meal.

The new kids menu moves away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to a two-tiered entrée option with a selection of sides and beverages to complete the meal.

According to Applebee's, the 10 new meals approved by Kids LiveWell are the most among all national casual dining restaurant brands. Of note, French fry orders declined from 73 to 39 percent during a three-month testing period for the new Applebee’s kids menu.

“Because of today’s busy lifestyle, it can be a struggle for on-the-go families to find options that are healthy and kid-approved,” said Marc Prince, director of operations. “With our new kids menu, parents can concentrate on engaging with their family while knowing their growing kids can get a fun, healthy meal at Applebee’s.”

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On Sunday Family Day, all kids meals are $1.99

The new Applebee’s kids’ menu includes:

• A two-tiered menu with entrée options for older kids with bigger appetites and younger kids with smaller appetites.

• 10 new Kids LiveWell-approved meals with three entrée options, including chicken, steak and pasta. Previously, the Applebee’s kids’ menu had just two meals that qualified under the Kids LiveWell nutritional guidelines.

• 2 Kids LiveWell-approved side items, and 11 total side choices, including Kids LiveWell-approved and all-natural GoGo squeeZ Applesauce and Kids LiveWell-approved steamed broccoli, apple slices with all-natural yogurt, all-natural yogurt and strawberries, white rice, salads and carrots or celery with ranch dressing.

Free New Year’s Eve Toast for Kids

On New Year's Eve, Applebee’s invites families to ring in the New Year together with a free sparkling cider toast for kids under 12 years old (one per child) served all day on Tuesday, December 31 at the Lake City Applebee’s. 

Comments (to add a comment go here

On Dec. 27, 2013, CL from Tampa wrote:

Good for Applebee’s! I’m going to take my grandsons there to eat.

This work by the Columbia County Observer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

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