Treating the Children Properly at The Handmade Burger Co.

As a parent to a newborn that loves to eat everything, except there’s normally very little choice beyond the ‘Kids’ menu. In a country that’s struggling with childhood obesity it still surprises me how many restaurants (if you could call them that) think it’s acceptable to serve deep friend anything to the little ones.

It isn’t!

Thinking about it from their point of view, they’ve probably got that limited menu because it’s what the kids ask for. But the reason they ask for it is because it’s what they’ve always had out right? So taking the opportunity to try the Junior Menus on our visit to The Handmade Burger Co. on Manchester’s Deansgate, we were in for a big surprise. Their newly launched Junior menu not only pleased us, and I’ll tell you why in a minute, but ever since I can remember, we used to make jokes about the “Kids” menu being for goats. So it’s a pleasure to go to a restaurant that treats everyone at all ages. Having arrived late as I had just finished work and parked up, I was greeted by the Palmer Tribe and one of my favourite tipples, Brooklyn Lager. Doesn’t it look amazing against the awesome brick work. We were greeted by literally the funniest, friendliest server we’d ever met. He was an absolute diamond and treated Dorothy like a celebrity having conversations, reading through her books and providing endless colouring material. Having children in restaurants must be hard on the staff as there’s normally a lot more mess and you can see how they could be resentful. But here no way! He deserves a medal. The junior menu was everything we’d dreamed of and hoped that restaurants would do. Mini versions of the larger meals so the little ones don’t need to feel left out. Why should they. It was an easy choice for Dorothy with her first Cheese Burger, Side Salad and Milk. Definitely Milk! What wasn’t easy was our choices. Just look at that pit range, that’s the smallest section on the menu, it’s ridiculous. As you can imagine that’s what I had! The American BBQ Bacon Stuffed with Denver Fries literally had my name written all over it! YUM! Mrs P went for an Advocado bad boy and Beth the biggggggest chicken burger I’ve ever seen! It literally had a whole chickens worth of breast meat in. We could see our burgers being cooked through the open kitchen and I can tell you, all the food was cooked from scratch as well as we were informed, handmade in house on that day. Do you think that looks handmade? I’m a lover of all things meaty, just look at my previous posts about burgers, steak and all things carnivorous, but I’d never been here! It’s crazy because I frequent Deansgate often and I’ve never noticed the restaurant. I’m so happy I have now, this is my go-to place for a family meal. Dorothy got stuck into her awesome meal, stopping occasionally for a drink of nice cold fresh milk as we devoured our burgers and awesome Denver and sweet potato fries. For the vigilant of you, yes that it pulled pork on the fries and no Dorothy hasn’t got a nose bleed. She’s loving dippy sauce at the moment which is great, but obviously extremely messy! One of the best things about our visit was being together as a family all enjoying ourselves. We hardly ever get to spend time like this in a place that we all love. It’s either a compromise for the little one such as soft play or our local family friendly restaurant, or it’s a gritty, burger place that we’ll love and then Dorothy’s left eating off our plate as we won’t give her deep friend fish fingers (no fish included). Overall as a family, we would highly recommend Handmade Burger Co. for its amazing food, ideal location, pricing but most of all, how it made us feel. It was a family friendly atmosphere in a grown ups burger joint. We had a great time to which we are so greatful to Handmade Burger Co. for. They invited us along to try the junior meal and everything I’ve said is my own words and feelings. If you’re like me, a lover of quality burgers, with a family that deserves an experience too, don’t go anywhere else. ]]>