A fine dining restaurant at Springfield is helping couples reconnect and encouraging children to enjoy traditional play by serving up monthly date nights.
BLVD Restaurant has added date nights to its menu with outstanding success.
Manager Sirle Adamson said their popularity – usually booking out within a day of being promoted – told a story about what families wanted from the local dining scene.
“My partner and I took over managing the restaurant in September last year and thought about what was missing from the local dining scene,” she said.
“We wanted to do something for families, so decided to start date nights.
“It all started because when my kids were younger I really did not want to hire a babysitter to go out and if you do, it costs so much, there isn’t really anything left for dinner is there?
“So we decided once a month we would turn the conference room into a childminding area, and bring in a childminder to look after the kids so parents can relax and enjoy a good meal.
“The best thing about it is the parents can still see their children, because the conference room walls are glass, but they can enjoy their dinner uninterrupted.
“We don’t allow screens in the room except for the big TV on the wall where we screen a movie and it really encourages the kids to interact with one another.
“We have a big box of traditional games like Twister, Uno, giant building blocks and that kind of thing – the kids just love it.
“What makes our offering unique is we offer silver service, which means we take your booking, greet you at the door and offer full table service.
“It’s service like you would get in the city without having to drive to the city or pay big prices for parking.”
Slow cooked barbecue is the hero of BLVD Restaurant, but a wide range of tastes and dietary requirements are catered for.
Ms Adamson said the introduction of monthly date nights was just one of several new initiatives at BLVD.
“We also recently held our first concert at the restaurant with triple Aria award-winning band The Audreys and we plan to do more.
“Our focus is on offering a good dining experience with some entertainment. All our food is prepared in-house, we smoke all meat on site and make all our own sauces.”
Ms Adamson, originally from Estonia, said she was passionate about promoting a sense of community at Springfield.
“I think anyone who knows me locally knows I am all about community,” she said.
“I get involved in a lot of fundraisers and support local community groups.
“I come from a very tight-knit community in Estonia where everybody helped everybody and everybody knew their neighbours. If we can bring people together here, that would be nice.
”We have a motto that you walk in to BLVD as a guest but you walk out as family – as much as you want of course; some people just come for the meal and that is okay too.”
BLVD Restaurant is at 7/1 Springfield Lakes Blvd and serves breakfast Monday to Friday 7am to 9am, lunch Wednesday to Saturday noon to 2pm and dinner Monday to Saturday 5pm-8.30pm.
Monthly date night events are promoted via the restaurant’s Facebook page here. The event listing for the April 12, 2019 date night can be found here.
