The recession has made for lonely weeknights at many local restaurants, but many others are filled at least one night a week with the noise of children's voices as families scrunch into booths.

Those would be the restaurants that offer free meals to kids who eat with paying adults. Most are chains, though many "mom-and-pop" restaurants are also in the game. Most -- but not all -- require one paying adult per nonpaying child.

The deals are usually one evening every week, and sometimes two evenings. Tuesdays and other weeknights are the most common, but practiced deal-hunters know where their kids can grab a free Saturday or Sunday lunch.

For families with limited time, scant cooking skills and moderate food budgets, it's possible to dine out nearly every night of the week at a different restaurant, without once paying for the kids: Monday, for example, at Hacienda de Vega in Escondido; Tuesday at a Chick-Fil-A or a Coco's; and so forth. Restaurants are usually more expensive than eating at home, but managers say they're counting on families' newfound frugality to combine with force of habit and desire to splurge modestly every now and then.

Most of all, they're counting on diners such as Trichelle Solomon, whose 9-year-old daughter, Sydnee, ate free on Monday night at the Islands hamburger restaurant in Temecula.

They used to eat at the restaurant about once a month, on varying days of the week.

But the restaurant launched its kids-eat-free program in September. Then Solomon was laid off from a Murrieta property-management company in October. Now she and Sydnee and her 13-year-old son, Tristan, eat dinner there nearly every Monday, she said.

"We're friends with the manager," Solomon quipped.

"Kids eat free" and similar deals have been available to at least three generations of penny-pinching parents, and to managers who want to keep a critical mass of customers on weeknights while also cutting wait times on weekends. The deals are also helpful for keeping spaghetti out of everyone's hair on the other six nights, one restaurant representative said.

At some restaurant chains, the kids' nights have come and gone with business cycles as regional managers try to lure guests from competitors. Islands introduced its program at about one-third of its locations, those that had already been selling the most kids meals.

Several parents said Monday night that they hadn't seen such crowds at Islands or any other local restaurant on a weeknight in several months.

Like Islands locations in Temecula and Vista, many restaurants that now offer children freebies either launched or expanded them last fall, as consumers were starting to balk at spending money on restaurant meals and everything else.

Revenue at most sit-down restaurants was already falling by 2 to 6 percent in the summer, according to local cities' latest tax reports, and interviews with people in the restaurant industry suggest annual declines of 3 to 10 percent for the full year.

The promotions usually help boost restaurants' revenue, but their effect on the bottom line depends on which customers respond, one restaurant marketing consultant said. The consultant, Chad Davis of Columbus, Ohio, said some of his clients had previously cut into their profit margins by shifting customers from other nights of the week when they had been paying full price for kids' meals.

Representatives of Carlsbad-based Islands Restaurants LP and the Carrows and Coco's chains, which also have kids' nights, declined to discuss profit or specific sales figures.

But all hinted that the promotions had boosted sales significantly.

A spokeswoman for Carrows and Coco's said the restaurants' revenue rises by about one-fourth on kids' nights from other weeknights. The two chains are owned by Catalina Restaurant Group Inc., also based in Carlsbad.

Even modest advertising efforts can draw large numbers of frugal diners from home and other restaurants, which in turn can boost profit. Davis launched http://kidsmealdeals.com in Columbus, Ohio, last fall and is now expanding it to California and other states. He said several hundred thousand people have used the site, which identifies deals by ZIP code.

"A lot of these restaurants are putting these (promotions) in place because they know it's a powerful incentive," Davis said.

The incentive has indeed been powerful for Anita's Restaurant on El Camino Real in Oceanside, co-owner Alan Ceja said.

Anita's began to offer free meals for children on Tuesday evenings before the recession and later expanded the promotion to Sunday lunches and dinners when Tuesdays became crowded. Ceja said the restaurant's average take on Tuesdays has risen by 10 to 15 percent since early last year, when the recession was getting under way. Average Sunday revenue has risen by 25 percent, he said.

Ceja wasn't able to quantify the promotion's impact on the restaurant's bottom line, but it appears to be positive, he said. In some cases, a gratis meal for a child "frees" up money to spend on a margarita, which is a more profitable item, Ceja said.

Moreover, the kids' nights don't appear to have drawn away large numbers of higher-paying guests from other days of the week, and Ceja said he believes the expense of free meals is more than offset by the new paying customers.

"The most expensive table in a restaurant is an empty one," Ceja said.

Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (760) 740-5444 or cbagley@nctimes.com. Bagley blogs about local economic trends at http://bizblogs.nctimes.com.

See the list for a full week of free kids' meals in Southwest Riverside County

See the list for nearly a full week of free kids' meals in North San Diego County

See also:

http://www.kidsmealdeals.com

RETAIL: Dining chains slow expansions (Feb. 22, 2009)

RESTAURANTS: Study shows industry feeling the economic pinch (Jan. 29, 2009)