A new baby/toddler friendly coffee shop in Burgess Hill..?

[bhcoffeandplay]

Hi all,

We are considering opening a baby/toddler-focused coffee shop in Burgess Hill and are hoping for some advice/thoughts from the local community. We have a 10 month old baby and understand some of the specific needs of parents of young children, and feel a coffee shop which is targeted at meeting some of these needs could work locally. Any suggestions/comment on the following would be most welcome:

Location (we are looking at high street to tie in with parents doing some shopping and premises away from high street are tricky to find)

Set up (Reasonable space for children to play and nicely furnished area for coffee. This would not be a soft play set up but safe, matted play area with some soft toys and learning areas).

Food and drink (would be good quality, priced a little below high street branded coffee shops. Healthy options for children)

Activities (Mornings would be open to parents coming in and having a coffee while children play. Popular baby/toddler group activities would run within coffee shop each afternoon).

Birthday parties (would be available Mon-Fri from 4pm and weekends, approx £120 to hire exclusively for 90-120 mins)

This is obviously an extremely basic overview but it would be great to get some local parent's feelings about the above (and anything else) so we have a little more direction. We acknowledge it won't suit everyone but we're keen to get some feelers to help gauge whether there's enough demand.

Thank you all so much for any input!

I'm nowhere near your area but I do think that's a great idea. Where I live, there is nothing like that and it would be great to have somewhere which caters for babies/toddlers and where you can have activities together. Love the idea of the party option - there's also a lack of suitable facilities for that where I'm from. Chuck in a sound system and a birthday cake and I'm sure that will be a hit!

Great idea but not sure if Burgess Hill is not saturated enough with coffee shops and toddler groups. The town centre itself has Costa, Cafe Nero, Cozy cafe, Mabel's, The indoor market coffee shop, one opp Iceland, Kazoo's (is it still called that?). Yes they don't offer the activites you are suggesting but would a coffee shop limiting itself to young families be sustainable against all the other options?

In order to offer these activities, you would need a large premises to accommodate buggies, tables etc. Not sure you would get this space in the town centre and have you taken into account the proposed regeneration of Burgess Hill shopping area?

Birthday parties - what exactly are you offering? Just a hire-able space and catering? Or will you have an entertainer?

The soft play place in Church Road used to offer similar - coffee, place to sit and chat while the children played, and birthday parties. It is no longer in business. I know you want to offer a more "upmarket" version of this, but not sure if it's the right town.

This would be a great idea (I'm from BH) but would agree you'd need a large premises to have room for the buggies. There's quite a lot of vacant shops now near the bandstand which have been empty for a while so sure you could negotiate a good price.

I would echo CleanHankie in everything she has posted - while this seems like a good idea on paper it has been done in Burgess Hill and didn't succeed. The last place was called Pickles. You might find something about it on Burgess Hill Uncovered if you wanted to know more.