We have been working for several months in partnership with catering company Benugo to develop a new industry benchmark for heritage sites and cultural institutions across the UK. Benugo runs catering outlets at many UK museums and cultural attractions, making it a key partner in enhancing the sector’s provision.

The Family Café Standard will run exclusively at Benugo sites until February 2024, including the British Museum in London and Edinburgh Castle.

Sophie McCready, Director of Partnerships & Marketing at Benugo, comments: “We are proud to announce our partnership with Kids in Museums as we continue to ensure Benugo sites are as inclusive and accessible as possible. The Family Café Standard will take into consideration the cost to purchase food and drink in museum cafés, and the availability of healthy options, amongst other criteria.

“We have worked in close collaboration over the past year to create an accreditation scheme which we hope will become a recognised benchmark throughout the UK.”

According to our Kids in Museums Manifesto family survey, visiting a museum café is key part of a museum visit that many families look forward to. However, 78% said they only ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’ found food in museum cafés affordable and only 22% felt they offered a good variety of children’s food, in particular healthy or vegetarian options.

Drawing on this feedback, comments from family judges for our Family Friendly Museum Award and a survey of family museum visitors in summer 2021, we devised a Family Café Standard Checklist. This rates museum cafés on the quality of their online information and promotion, space and facilities, choice of food, affordability, sustainability and staff training. It includes everything from children’s meals and activities in the café to food waste and sourcing sustainable and high welfare ingredients.

In Spring, staff provided evidence of how their facility met the checklist, which was assessed by the Kids in Museums team. We also provided staff training videos for Benugo staff on greeting and interacting with families.

We are delighted to share that Benugo cafés at over 20 visitor attractions have secured accreditation:

  • The Ashmolean Café at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
  • Barbican Kitchen at the Barbican Centre, London
  • The Bodleian Café at the Bodleian Library, Oxford
  • The Pizzeria and Great Court Restaurant at the British Museum, London
  • The Burrell Restaurant at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow
  • Redcoat Café at Edinburgh Castle
  • The Pavilion Café at Greenwich Park, London
  • Canteen at the London Transport Museum
  • Terrace Restaurant at London Zoo
  • Parkside Café & Terrace at the National Maritime Museum, London
  • Museum Kitchen and Balcony Café at National Museum Scotland, Edinburgh
  • Regent’s Bar & Kitchen at Regent’s Park, London
  • T. rex Restaurant at the Natural History Museum, London
  • The Café at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester
  • Energy Café at the Science Museum, London
  • Serpentine Bar & Kitchen at Hyde Park, London
  • Unicorn Café at Stirling Castle
  • St James’s Café at St James Park, London
  • The Savill Garden Kitchen at Windsor Great Park
  • Lochview Café at Urquhart Castle, Inverness
  • The Town Square Café at the Young V&A, London

The accredited venues are listed on our website and are able to use our Family Café Standard logo on their menus, signage and websites.

Alison Bowyer, Executive Director of Kids in Museums, said: “Congratulations to the first group of visitor attractions to achieve our Family Café Standard. The small but meaningful changes the venues have made will make an important difference to families’ experience of visiting a museum. The launch of our new benchmark has been many months in the making and we hope this is a significant first step in enhancing café provision at museums across the UK. I would like to thank our partners at Benugo for their commitment to our mission to make museums welcoming spaces for all children and families.”

The Family Café Standard will open for applications to independent museum cafés and café chains in the UK from November 2023. Please make sure you are signed up to our Museum Mailing List to be notified when museum applications open.

If you would like to find out more or share feedback on your visit to one of the above cafés, please visit our Family Café Standard web page.