Adventure playgrounds, grab-a-teddy machines or soft-play areas usually give the game away.
The Brewers Fayre chain is clearly out to capture young families and feed them as cheaply as possibly.
We arrived the Woodhorn Grange at 5pm on Sunday afternoon – most pubs had long since stopped serving. The beauty of the Brewers Fayres is their extended opening times so you can choose to join the masses for lunch or wait for the rush to abate.
It is set in the picturesque Queen Elizabeth II Country Park next to the highly impressive Woodhorn Colliery Museum.
But once inside, you could be anywhere in the country – one Brewers Fayre is very much like another.
The company has hit on a successful formula and stuck to it – catering for the masses from a set menu serving traditional pub grub at knock-down prices.
You know exactly what to expect if you've been to a Brewers Fayre – its a common menu across all venues.
It'll not be haute cuisine and will never win Masterchef; you'll be able to spot the microwaved meals and the frozen veg; little is home-made and there's no mention of anything local on the extensive menu, but you can't argue when you're only charged, for example, £2.50 for soup of the day, with half a baguette and butter; or £5.99 for hand-battered fish and chips; or £4.99 for Cornish pasty and chips; or £5.99 for chicken Kiev; or £6.49 for a 6oz beef burger; or even £11.49 for the most expensive item on the menu, an 8oz sirloin steak.
The Woodhorn Grange has all the trappings of a child magnet – the aforementioned adventure playground, slot machines and soft-play area. But it is also a comfortable environment for adults to sit and wait for a late Sunday lunch, as we discovered.
Despite its huge size, we could imagine the place heaving a few hours earlier. There would have been no need to play the soothing background music to which we were treated – no-one would have been able to hear it!
It has been designed to mock an olde worlde pub, complete with alcoves, solid antique pine furniture and panelling, stencils on a wooden ceiling and logs by a gas 'coal' fire.
The place is geared for meals – every table has a number, which you quote when ordering your food at the bar.
And the menu is packed with standard pub concoctions – beef and ale pie (£6.99), sausage and mash (£5.99), mixed grill (£9.99), gammon steak (£6.99) sweet and sour chicken (£6.99), lasagne (£6.49), chilli con carne (£5.99), roast beef, lamb, turkey and chicken (£7.50 to £7.99) and so on.
Vegetarians are surprisingly well served with two starters and nine main courses, including vegetable moussaka (£6.99), tomato risotto (£6.99), spicy enchilada (£6.99), field mushroom and mascarpone pasta (£5.99) and Caesar salad (£5.99), not the most imaginative but a choice nonetheless.
Children are in their element, with a menu almost as large as the adults' and enough meal deals to give parents of indecisive kids a panic attack.
They can have a mini main (chicken salad, cheese and beans jacket potato, fish and chips, chicken nuggets, etc) for £2.99; an organic main (meatballs and pasta, double beef burger, lamb hotpot, etc) for £4.99; or a mighty main (steak and chips, spaghetti bolognaise, chicken wrap, veggie sausage and mash, etc) for £3.99.
Each one comes with its corresponding meal deal, just to add to the confusion!
We all chose from the main course. I went for the chicken and mushroom pie, served with chips, peas and extra gravy (£6.99); my wife resumed her love affair with lasagne (£6.49) after suffering withdrawal symptoms over the past few weeks. It was served with garlic ciabatta slice and a side salad.
The children requested adults' roast dinners (chicken and beef) before disappearing to play with the other youngsters on the slides and climbing frames.
My pie did not survive the microwave all that well, emerging with soggy, chewy pastry. The filling of chicken and mushrooms in a sauce with a curious tomato flavour could have been fresher.
The extra instant beef gravy did not complement either chicken dishes well but was useful for dipping the chips.
My wife was happy with her lasagne – it was tasty although quite fluid. Her salad and garlic bread were good and she was glad of her side order of chips.
Interrupted from their games, the children tucked into the roasts and had no complaints. The meat in both cases was dry but they had worked up enough of an appetite not to notice.
They wouldn't even wait around for a dessert, so we left it at that despite the temptation of sticky toffee pudding (£3.50), profiteroles (£3.50), caramel apple crumble pie (£3.50), chocolate fudge cake (£3.50), clotted cream cheesecake (£3.50) and the like.
It had been a relaxing meal, especially with the kids suitably and safely occupied, and set us back a reasonable £38.05, including drinks (two pints and two soft drinks).