Thinking of opening a soft play centre, advice wanted!!!!!!!!!

[alkar]

I have been told that the lab I work in will possibly shutting down and we could all be out of a job soon. I was beginning to look for other jobs anyway because, to be honest after doing the job for over 10 years I'm bored. I've been thinking about what I could do instead and have realised that there are no soft play centres in this area and myself and friends always have to travel to go to one.

As I said I have always worked in a lab and have no business experience at all. I will be in partnership with a friend of mine who is a chef so the catering side is sorted. Does anyone have any experience they can share????

Sorry cant help you with the business thing, but as a CM I go to alot of Soft Plays, and we always go back to the same one, because it is the only one that is small enough for under 5's, the others are all to big.

And when you think that all over 5's are at school all day, the younger ones do need to be catered for properly.

I agree with you, my DS is 2 and I go back to the ones for 'little' uns

I agree a nice under fives area, and I also like the ones that have a decent area for the parents/carers, one I go to the tables are really close together and with peoples buggies it feels over crowded, another has a lot more space and a tv's hung on the walls but the cafe is rubbish, so my ideal would be good under fives area, nice room space for the waiting adults and nice cafe so having your friend cater is ideal you can have home baked cakes.

my local play centre is fab. it has 3 main area's. an under ones which is quite small with soft rings and a few wide steps for the crawlers. a toddler section which has a small soft slide into a ball pool and a large kids bit with 2 slides, a climbing wall (although i never see kids on it) and a football area with foam balls. its always busy and the seating is spacious with both tables and chairs and leather sofas. they let adult go on all the equipment which is good. i hate the wacky warehose type places and they dont let adults in and my 2 year old is only just started going off on her own. it also has a room where a women does mums nails and stuff but i am not sure i would want relaxing treatments in a play centre.

Agree with the others. It has to have a good small persons area.
We have quite a few so here goes
My favourite has wifi and the soft play is basically a giant cube with bridges, small steps and slides to go in and out and round. The outside is all netting so wherever they are you can see them. It also doesn't sell food but you can bring your own (very important). There are lots of seats and tables, not very comfy but not too bad. It is in a leisure centre though so across the hall is a coffee place that sells lunchboxes so you can buy food there shoudl you wish. Also as it's in teh leisure centre it is surrounded by floor to ceiling windows so is very bright.

Another one has banned a load of my friends for giving a 7 month old a banana they brought in. They also have 'over 18' party nights where they serve alcohol and let them on the equipment. I don't go there if I can help it as I am always worried they won't have cleaned properly. It also has parts where the children can go behind/under the slides to play which means you can't see them from the chairs and have to keep going to get them. And their coffee is instant and ming.

The nearest and most popular one is CHEAP and again quite open so you can mostly see them. They have an 'underneath' bit for smaller children but you can stil see the older preschoolers playing. The best bit is it does meal deals, so you pay £3 in for 2 hours during the day (under 5's only) and they get lunch in that, either sausage and chips or sarnies and fruit. We normally spend another 5-6 quid each on drinks (big jug squash for £2) coffee and baked potatoes or paninis for us.
They also have rooms upstairs where they cut hair for a fiver (including treat bag, dvd while they have it done and a free hour play) and themed parties (they have a beauty room, hsm room and childrens character costumes) It's not hugely clean and is a bit dark but it's cheap and not too fussy on 'food from home'. Oh, and they serve good machine coffee and homemade biscuits. V important.

HTH!

This is fab, thankyou. Keep em coming!!!!

There's a really popular one in my town. It has comfy chairs and decent coffee - similar in style to Costa or Nero - to keep the parents happy. A good under-threes area with a bouncy castle. Natural daylight (from skylights). And plenty of room/different stuff for the older kids, including an enormous slide (like a fairground thingy), a drop slide for the really adventurous older ones, an area where they can race cars, another where they can play football, as well as all the ordinary clamber/whatever places.

They are online, can't remember the URL but called Big Space - worth taking a look as they do phenomenally well.

Good staff and enough of them are essential (and first aid training - doesn't matter how many signs you stick up, someone WILL come down the slide in a sleeveless top or shorts).

I can only offer advice on the customer side and my main gripe with them is the cafes too - they invariably sell piles of really shite food. It's just as easy to make a decent sandwich as it is to make a crappy one. They always seem to be full of sweet drinks, cakes, biscuits, just crap crap crap. I would definitely go to one with decent food over one without.

I agree that bringing your own food should be allowed too, especially for people with babies. There's a great new one opened near here recently, but it opens at 11am and you can't take your own food, which basically means that you more or less have to buy theirs if you go in the morning.

Some sofas as well as tables and chairs is nice - I like to curl up with a book and a cuppa while the DCs are playing.

I agree with allow food to be brought in, but perhaps also sell food, nothing fancy, but cheap, healthy/home made and suitable for a range of ages. How about free water for children? Or free refills of, say, squash.

One nearish here has a sensory area for babies which is a great gimmick, because parents of PFBs will pay up to about £1.50-£2 to get their little ones in, you do need to offer a sibling discount as well, but you can attract an extra 50p or £1 per family-with-older-child if they have a baby under 1. I think they have lots of different textures, lights, bubble tubes etc, and big bass speakers which are low volume but vibrate to the music played everywhere else.

I like to be able to study but be able to see the children from where I'm sitting.
At the soft play area where I go the little ones are downstairs, and the big ones if they can climb up play above.
It would be good if you could have raised seating going round the play area so you can see whether your child is in the baby area or has gone up to the top.
Also ours only offers chips - yuck. I would prefer to get some fresh vegies and dips while I'm sitting there watching my child be healthy and active.

See this recent thread about food to serve in soft play centres. Some good ideas.

Good Luck!

Someone who runs a soft play once told me that it is the food and drinks that they make money on so that is why they do not allow customers to bring their own.

I agree with separating out the under 5's into tinies and older toddlers. Also the food being as good as possible. Don't paying for it if it is nice.

Agree with the others.

The main things I like from a soft-play centre is,

• good areas for the kids to play in, where you can see them

• bright and clean. Good heating in the winter, our local one is freezing and I would rather drive 20 mins to a better one.

• good coffee, and reasonably priced

• nice home-made food

• special offers. Maybe reduced entry for toddler mornings or for CM's

• good security measures in place for safety, so mums are not constantly worried that the children can 'escape'

• Don't charge for adults. That just pisses us off and stops us buying extra coffees - or is that just me

Good luck, done right this could be a money spinner.

Agree about the food, we asked at our fav one, and the owner does us 'snack' bowls, og sliced up fruit, for the same price of a packet of crisps.

All the food is homemade, (including the chocolate cake)

They have no bother about giving you an extra plate to split a meal between two toddlers, and let us bring our own juice for the toddlers.

We do all buy coffee (fresh) and a meal at lunchtime for the adults, and go every week.

We also get a discount as a CM.

along with the food (which every one else has covered) cleanliness is a bigee for me. i went ot one once where the floor looked like it hadnt been hovered in about a week, and the bathroom floors were constantly sticky. i never went back there!

good luck

CM discount is a good idea. Good point about cleanliness too. Going to try to look at some places this week. I'm alternating between being very excited and scared scared scared

Great one near me called Fun At Splatz (google it if you're interested)
it sells home made food, under 2's are cheaper than 5 year olds, the coffee is good and the facilities awesome.
Only problem is they're now starting to also sell junk food, it's a shame as when there was no junk food to see, the kids didn't want it!

Good security - one near us has fences that a small child could easily climb under and escape.

Organise some club events during the week - dancing, music, tumbletots stuff etc., rather than just free play.

Make the cafe nice, clean and healthy, not a nasty expensive greasy spoon.

One near us has adults only evenings, so the grown ups can play too!

Have a membership scheme so people get discounts if they come a lot, or off-peak times. And don't ramp the prices up drastically once the child reaches 18 months, or people will just lie about their kids ages.

Where do you live alkar? I hope your fab new play centre will be somewhere near me!!

Let the adults onto the equipment - tiny children won't have the ability or confidence to go into a big play area on their own.

Offer parties for a range of budgets, again with healthy food and preferably a private section for the group to play.

Big Space has been mentioned and we're big fans of that one. They operate a card system where you get a card as you go in and it gets swiped when you buy anything. You pay as you leave so you're only paying once for entry, food, drinks, etc. Saves having to take a purse full of cash. They have an area with computer games which is good for when the older kids get a bit tired of running around.

I haven't come across one that doesn't charge entry for adults but that would be a huge bonus in my opinion. I really resent paying for myself when I'm already spending money on drinks and food.

A new one opened up in my town yesterday and we checked it out today. Three things really impressed me. They had a couple of staff in the play area, keeping an eye on the kids. We were there two hours and our table was cleared three times, we saw the toilets cleaned and the floors cleaned. Very impressive standard - hope they keep it up! Finally, a really small thing but they provided a few kids' comics and they were incredibly popular. Sometimes the kids get a bit tired and five minutes looking at a comic can make a lot of difference.

the best soft play we have ever been to was in Singapore.
They make you wash your hands with a foam sanitiser when you come in. No bare feet allowed, if you have no socks you can buy disposable ones. Money does not change hands when in there - you get a card when you come in and any food or anything else you want gets added to your card and you pay when you leave.
Had computers with internet, nail bar, really nice food in the cafe.
The actual equipment was beautifully designed; bright funky colours (not red, blue, yellow!) with a quirky soft climbing wall etc
Fab!

oh, and lockers so you can stash your bag and shoes and not stress about them getting nicked!

Comics sounds great and lockers would be good. Defo no junk food and I am veggie so I will make sure the veggie food is veggie. I am in the north west cuppa!

Clean is exactly what I was going to say.

I have been to some revolting soft play places, and tend to avoid them because they are generally filthy. I remember a toddler doing a wee in the balls at the Wacky Warehouse, and the staff not doing anything about it...