Opening a child friendly cafe - aimed at child feeding

[Noahsmum23]

I am looking to open a child-friendly cafe. Whilst there will be a fun area, for young children up to those aged 10 or 11, the café will also be classy and stylish for the parents to enjoy. Fantastic food and delicious coffee will be served, making the establishment more than a glorified softplay. However I am worried that the clientele base is going to be too narrow, and am wondering how to achieve the perfect balance between child-friendly and adult-friendly. We want to avoid the cheesy soft-plays, with added on cafeteria feel, but also stay away from the anti-child feel of the high end restaurants.

Any suggestions?? Would you consider using such an establishment - it is even possibly to combine the two??

sofas or comfy arm chairs at ALL tables, as opposed to having one "good" table with a sofa/soft chairs and the rest being horrible hard chairs!

There's one near me a bit like this. There are some toys but it's not soft play and they do adult food too.

They also do some craft stuff like painting plates.

I can't imagine anyone going without children though if that's what you mean by combining things? Although I live in a town so there's masses of nice cafes, I guess with less choice you might get some people in without kids.

I think this is a brilliant idea, not my cup of latte as I am not in your focus group! But anything to encourage the messy mums away from normal coffee shops sounds good to me.

I would have lots of child sized dustpans to encourage them to clean up after themselves!

There is one near me. For me it's about the menus.

Fantastic menu for adults with beautifuly presented food, lovely healthy options and indulge options. Think delicious soups served with cheese scone fingers, cream teas with fresh strawberries as well as generous portions of jam.

The kids menus are also great. Tots mezze with pitta, cucumber and over veg to dip. Small portions of healthy and interesting food, bowls of chopped fruit nothing deep fried.

There is a large outdoor play area with lots of outdoor toys. Indoors is an area with nice toys and games.

We had one in Cardiff that recently closed down but they used to offer a family dining evening some days which I thought was nice, where the adults could eat proper food while the children played. They also had a family gym so you could work out while the children were in a crèche environment, or you could take part in family workouts.

I would not want comfy arm chairs as they are not ideal for eating at and would not put you at the same level as those in a high chair.

How would your idea compare to chain restaurants like zizzi etc?

Tbh, anyone wanting classy and stylish won't expect to have a soft play bit in the corner.

Hmm a cafe with child play area and child friendly setting is not going to appeal to people w/out children. Hell is other peoples children. But if you make the setting soft furnished as much as possible to avoid the echoing chamber of little horrors effect, you get In most child friendly establishments, and serve good coffee tea and eats... Free WiFi etc it might broaden the appeal. Depends on the size and layout as well.

Use you venue differently in the evenings, that is a time when child free patrons would find the place more appealing perhaps? But other times why shy away from embracing your chosen identity?

There are few 'play cafes' where I live, that have a play area with lots of toys-big tents and toy kitchens, etc. They are always busy, nice home made food, good coffee. They also hire out for children's parties.

I'm not sure how much profit they make - a lot of mum's sit with their DC for a couple of hours buying very little, maybe a coffee for them, toast/tea cake for DC, some don't even buy DC a drink(bring DC own cup instead). They seem to use it as a toddler group, so somewhere to let the kids play while they sit and chat for the morning/afternoon.

I think if you're doing a play area, it's only going to be people with children using it. I know if I was going to a cafe without DC, no way would I go to one with a play area! So I wouldn't bother trying to make it stylish for adults.

There are a couple of these type cafes in Nottingham

I am not a fan. I think it's faddy and strikes me as a place I'd maybe go as a FTM who's mega proud of breastfeeding, but by the time subsequent children came along, there are far better places to take the kids.

So I agree the customer base is limited.

I have 4 children now, youngest is a toddler. If I want to go out for nice coffee, I want to do that as a child-free treat. If I'm going with the toddler, I would much prefer somewhere focused on keeping the toddler happy (playground, soft play etc) than me.

If the child is happy and busy, I can relax and be happy and relaxed. Entertaining the child comes first to that though.

Any suggestions??

Play workers, childcare professionals. Keep parental responsibility, so not a creche. But having people on-hand to actively play with and entertain the child would be amazing!

I agree that this sort of cafe isn't likely to appeal to people without children, no matter how good the food is. If it feels like it's aimed at encouraging children and there are lots of them there, you feel weird without them.

It probably depends what your local area is like but any child cafe tephbd where I am has gone bust.

Tbh, anyone wanting classy and stylish won't expect to have a soft play bit in the corner.

This is right, I think. That said, I regularly go to a child friendly cafe on my own if I'm meeting my friend with a toddler (whereas I wouldn't dream of tagging along, say, to soft play while I don't have to), so you could expand your market a little with that? Eg grandparents want somewhere nice to go to meet the family/take the DGC.

I've considered this in the past but realised how hard it would be to make any money:

Space for children-pushchairs, highchairs, play area etc. all takes up space that could be used by paying customers.

People will stay for longer than they would for a normal meal /coffee but probably won't spend any more money-you will get groups meeting and making a coffee and some smuggled in Pom bears last 3 hours while the children play.

It will be hard to appeal to an evening clientele which cuts down your revenue even further.

There is a similar place near us but it's run as a charity really with lots of fundraising. Plus it has a few different rooms which can be rented for exhibitions/films/meetings etc

The most child friendly place we used to go when the kids were little was also run as a training charity for adults with learning disabilities in a church hall type venue. Lunch was usually a soup/ bread or various things on toast. Really cheap but they had quite a good coffee maker so coffee was nice but nothing fancy.

Decor was "church hall", furniture all donated and a bit worse for wear so didn't matter if you spilt stuff on it, big box of donated toys and a play kitchen in corner. Lots of space for buggies and other gubbins.

We all used to go there after morning play groups/ nursery sessions and hang around for a couple of hours.

It was very relaxing but not a money spinner.

I don't have kids yet there will be one in every coffee shop/cafe I ever visit. It's not like you can avoid them anywhere. It woulnt put me off popping in for morning coffee if it seemed quiet, but would avoid like plague on weekends/bank holidays

This place does it well and always seems busy when I've been in: www.delinene.com/

It is long and thin so the front has tables and a bar/drinks making area with cakes displayed, then you walk through a narrow corridor, perhaps alongside the kitchen to a pram/pushchair parking area and into another seating area at the end of which is a fenced and gated play area that is well used and a good sized clean baby change. There are relatively inexpensive and healthy children's options, such as a single slice of toast, fruit etc. so unless a child can't manage finger foods, there is no need to bring your own food for a baby or toddler. It also has nice Mediterranean inspired meals and they do Deliveroo in the evening, which must make them extra money too.

It seems quite popular with NCT antenatal class reunions, probably due to the pram parking area!

I forgot to mention that the front section is used more by the baby/toddler free people while those who want to access the play area sit in the rear area with the small corridor dividing them.