How we do it

What this site is

kidseatfree.co.uk is a free, anonymous directory of UK restaurants, pubs, hotels, cafés and garden centres that run a “kids eat free” or “kids eat for £1” offer. No accounts, no login, no email signup. You tap a button, share where you are, and browse nearby restaurant entries and their recorded offer status.

It’s editorial — we list venues because they run an offer that helps families eat out cheaply, not because they paid for placement. Where a button takes you to a restaurant, booking platform, or partner page, we make that destination clear, and any commercial relationship will be disclosed where it applies.

Where the venue list comes from

The directory retains restaurant entries and records published kids’ offers where source evidence is available. Our recent venue-check count covers 1865 chains and 9,169 UK venue records. This count does not mean every entry has a current offer or an available table.

For each chain we record the exact deal terms (e.g. “one kids’ meal free with every adult main, Mon–Fri 3–7pm”), the days of the week the offer runs, whether it’s school-holidays-only, an age limit if the chain publishes one, and the official chain page where the offer is described.

Venue addresses and coordinates are checked against a reputable mapping source at seed time so the map link goes to the right place. We do not store or display third-party ratings, reviews or photos — only the venue’s name, address, and verified location.

How we keep it fresh

Source checks can use automated page matching and extraction. The recorded check date describes the evidence we hold, not a live call to the restaurant. Unclear or changed evidence needs another check before it supports a current claim.

Restaurant entries stay listed when their offer evidence becomes stale or cannot be verified. Current offer claims are suppressed until qualifying evidence is available. A missing current offer is not proof that the restaurant withdrew it.

We compare the published offer windows in our directory today with the same venues on a future check date: What the published offer windows cover over the next 14 days

What the confidence states mean

Recorded evidence can carry confidence labels. These describe the source check, rather than live opening hours, table availability or proof of manual review. Current offer claims also depend on freshness and the published eligibility rules.

• High — recently re-checked against the chain’s own offer page, and the recorded terms matched. Automated matching can produce this state.
• Medium — recently re-checked, but the match was weaker (for example, the chain has reworded its offer page). The deal still shows, but the evidence is less certain. This label alone does not qualify a current offer claim. Confirm the terms with the venue.
• Parent-confirmed — a parent has emailed us to say the deal was still running on a specific date at a specific venue, and we’ve recorded that confirmation where such a record exists; it is not live availability.
• Needs a recheck — the offer was verified at some point but it hasn’t been re-checked recently. The card is shown but it carries an explicit status rather than a current deal claim. The restaurant remains listed.
• Offer ended — the deal is past its known valid-through date or a recorded withdrawal identifies it as ended. The restaurant entry can remain listed.

The principle we hold ourselves to: a card never shows a “Kids Eat Free” or “Kids Eat for £1” badge unless the offer is currently in one of the confident states and the deal’s valid period hasn’t ended. If we’re not sure, the badge doesn’t render.

What the family meal estimate means

The family meal cost is an estimated range. Where menu prices are not verified, we use a broad cuisine-based adult meal range. Unknown child prices and offer requirements stay unconfirmed.

A published minimum adult spend is an offer condition. It does not tell us the price of an adult meal, so it cannot make the estimate precise.

Budget matching uses the top of the estimated range and excludes unconfirmed eligibility or child prices. It does not establish a table is available.

Drinks, starters, extras and service may cost more. The estimate helps you compare options; it is not a quote from the restaurant.

Why some offers come with conditions

A few kinds of restriction show up often enough that we surface them as badges. They are not gotchas — they are the actual rules the chain publishes on its own offer page.

• App required — some chains only honour the deal when you book or check in through their own app. The card flags this up front. If you don’t want to download anything, the results page has a filter that hides app-only offers.
• Adult spend required — most kids-eat-free offers attach to an adult main. Some go further and set a minimum spend on the adult side. The card shows the exact figure where the chain publishes one.
• School holidays only — several chains only run the offer during school-holiday weeks. We use the official school calendars for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to assess date eligibility. A “School holidays only” condition does not establish that the restaurant is open or has tables. Where a local-authority calendar cannot be established, eligibility may be uncertain.
• Branch may vary — a small number of chains only run the offer at a subset of their venues rather than the whole brand. We track which sites participate and only show the deal on those cards. The badge is a reminder that the chain itself isn’t a single rule.

Published conditions are recorded with the selected offer evidence. Changes require another source check; automated approval must not be mistaken for a recorded human review.

The anti-hallucination principle

If current qualifying evidence is missing, we withhold the current offer claim rather than infer it from a brand name or an old campaign. A failed check is not proof that an offer has been withdrawn.

Automated extraction and AI assistance can help process source material before publication. Approval records can be automated; we only describe a check as manually reviewed where a human review is recorded.

Crucially: we never call an AI model from inside a request. When you load the site, no language model runs. That keeps the site fast, cheap, and predictable, and it means what you see on the page is grounded in data we’ve already verified — not generated on the fly.

Where the photos come from

Every chain’s hero photo is sourced from the chain’s own website, press kit, or a permissively-licensed image library. We never use AI-generated imagery for brand photos. The full attribution trail for every image is published on the site (see the credits page).

Photos are served from image hosting we control. We don’t hot-link to third-party servers at runtime.

What we don’t do

• We don’t store your postcode or your location.
• We don’t run ads, and we don’t sell or share data for marketing. We do use Google Analytics to see which pages people use — what it collects, and how to switch it off, is set out in full on our privacy page.
• We don’t sell data — there’s no data to sell.
• We don’t take affiliate fees from bookings.
• We don’t guarantee an offer is still running tonight — venues can pause deals at short notice. Always check at the venue before you turn up if it matters.

If you find something wrong

If an offer’s changed, a venue’s closed, or a card shows the wrong details, please drop us a line via the contact page. We’ll fix it.