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Gen Alpha: the newest foodies

We frequently write about the growing importance of food and beverages at LBEs. At many social game venues, such as Top Golf, F&B accounts for the majority of sales. Roughly 2/3rds of Gen Z and Millennials are foodies or the broader category of food adventurers who exhibit foodie behaviors but don't label themselves as foodies. Now, along comes Gen Alpha, children 16 and younger, and you'll be surprised what they're learning from their parents.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, parents in New York and New Jersey reported that their children's newest food obsession isn't pizza, hot dogs, or those little nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, but rather Sushi. While raw fish might seem an odd option for such young palates, there are some compelling reasons for its popularity.

Playing with your food is fun

Children tend to prefer foods that are easy to eat (finger foods), visually appealing, and interactive or customizable (dipped, spread, pulled apart). The dino nugget is a perfect example: a finger food in an interesting shape that little fingers can dip into their preferred sauce in their preferred amount. It provides an interesting, stimulating meal and allows them to exercise a sense of autonomy over their dining experience, both by enabling the child to eat it themselves without the difficulty of cutlery and by allowing them to adjust its flavor as they wish with dipping sauces. Sushi is surprisingly very similar. With its bright colors and artful arrangement, served with accompaniments like soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger, Sushi is a visually appealing, customizable, and interactive finger food.

Foodie parents create foodie children

Foodie culture continues to trend across generations, but especially among Gen Z and Millennial adults, with 70% of Gen Z and 66% of Millennials displaying foodie behaviors. Ranging in age from 18 to 44, these are the parents raising Gen Alpha. Unlike the generations before them, Gen Z and Millennial parents refuse to sacrifice their own culinary desires to cater to their children's. These parents won't suffer through cardboard-flavored pizza at a traditional FEC to placate their kids. Instead, they take their children with them to their favorite dining spots. If you want to learn more about these young, culinarily adventurous parents, check out our July 2025 and January 2023 articles on them here and here.

Children learn food habits at a young age by imitating their parents' behavior. What their parents consider normal, they consider normal. And so, it is no surprise that foodie parents would create junior foodies in their children.

Gen Z and Millennials also place high importance on health and wellness in their own diets, and those of their children, and Sushi ticks many of these boxes. Sushi is high in protein, full of healthy fats, and free of artificial ingredients, all traits that health-conscious diners look for. It can also be easily modified for gluten-intolerant and vegan/vegetarian diners.

It's not just Sushi

While sushi-eating toddlers make for a great headline, the Gen Alpha foodie trend goes far beyond a tuna roll. The qualities that make these junior foodies gravitate toward Sushi, an interactive global cuisine, featuring bold flavors while being health-conscious, extend to other cuisines as well. In fact, Chartwells K12, a provider of school meals for over 2 million students in 4,500 schools, listed these very traits among their top 10 trends of 2024:

• Dippable foods - interactive and customizable foods with dips and dunkables, such as roasted beet hummus with broccoli and carrots, or just an elevated dip for traditional favorites such as chicken nuggets.
• Global flavors - global flavors and cuisines, especially Latin American and Asian cuisines, such as Caribbean Chicken Fricassee featuring the flavors of the tropics and Gochujang Chicken Lettuce Cups offering a look at Korean cuisine.
• Spicy flavors - from a Thai Style Chicken & Noodle Salad to a swicy Honey BBQ Sriracha Chicken Grain Bowl, students are looking for spicy (or swicy) flavors
• Protein, protein, protein-With 70% of consumers currently trying to increase their protein intake, it is no surprise that we are seeing a similar interest in Gen Alpha. Protein is an important dietary consideration right now, including plant-based options like Spicy Avocado Mushroom Quesadilla and Black Bean Soups.
• Fresh and Local -Through farm-to-school initiatives and partnering with local farms, kids are getting the chance to try items like Kale and Cranberry Salad, Beef Picadillo, and Zucchini and Golden Squash Casserole.

In fact, young foodies are becoming so prevalent that there are even toys created just for them. Melissa and Doug have created their own play sushi set. And check out this Fisher-Price charcuterie board we wrote about in 2020.

The bottom line

Children learn from their parents, and Gen Alpha's parents are adventurous foodies seeking healthy, clean, protein-rich meals. They won't compromise these values, and so bring their children along for the experience. Therefore, the traditional FEC paradigm of luring families in by offering exclusively kid-friendly foods like pizza, chicken nuggets, and hot dogs is not only unappealing to parents but also to their children.

As children's palates become more sophisticated and their culinary experiences broaden, LBEs, including FECs and children's entertainment centers (CECs), need to rise to the occasion by offering more elevated menu items on their children's menus and at birthday parties, in addition to the traditional kid-friendly fare. This doesn't mean you need to go out and hire yourself a sushi chef (yet). You can start with something as simple as adapting popular adult meals at your facility for the children's menu or offering higher-quality pizza with a broader selection of toppings for your birthday parties (with the associated upcharge, of course). And if you aren't already offering the adults attending your LBE foodie-worthy options, now is the time to start.

A more global, foodie-inspired menu will appeal to higher socio-economic families who are willing to pay a premium for high-quality food. The Wall Street Journal's article on sushi-loving children is titled "Parents are going broke for their kids' sushi obsession." While the article's title may be sensational, the underlying premise is not. Parents are willing to pay and pay well for quality food offerings for their children. If you are not appealing to them with your food and beverage offerings, you are losing revenue.

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