Advice please - opening a Play Cafe

[LadybirdsPlayCafe]

Hi there, not sure if this is the right place to post but here goes...

I'm looking to set up a 'Play Cafe' in my local area and would really appreciate some feedback. I've read several posts about soft play centres but this is a little bit different and I'd be really keen to find out exactly what mums and dads want from such a café.

The plan is to open a café for under 4s with low level soft play, books, dressing up and toys. With tables in the middle so that parents can actually relax and have a coffee, confident that their child is safe and happy and in plain sight and that there are no larger kids running round. The café would serve good, healthy food plus cakes and a toddler pic n mix of healthy baby friendly foods. There would also be an outside area with toys and picnic benches and a party room for birthday parties and hired out to local child-related businesses.

I'm currently looking for premises of around 3,000 square feet but struggling to find anywhere that has enough parking (about 20 spaces) and with space for an outside area. I'm looking for an out of town location and would think about 30 children would be the maximum at one time.

Any advice or thoughts on any of this would be greatly received.

Thank you.

I'd love something like this near me.. I have an older ds as well as a 2 year old and I hate the big soft plays for my little one but my eldest loves them so we go but somewhere I could take my ds when his brother is at school would suit me fine

"but is it financially viable?"

The key question.

The one near where I used to live found it unsustainable, because the families simply didn't eat/drink enough. It survived as a business, because it closed the play area. If found that those coming to play would buy one coffee, and spin it out for ages. Without the play area, they had more customers who didn't stay as long, but who spent more.

I note that you say in OP that there are two soft play centres already, and that they don't seem to refurb. Try to check if that's because they are not profitable enough.

I don't think you can have that age limit all day. You could have under 4s (better under 5s as there are plenty of 4.5 year olds not yet in school, depending on when birthdays fall) mornings - and term time school hours are automatically under 5s.

If you make your cafe under 4s only you build up a market, then when pfb turns 4 your customer can no longer bring her toddler DC2 and baby DC3 because she also has 4 year old Dc1,who you've banned for turning 4.

You're really hugely limiting your market with under 4s only unless you are in a big city where a lot of people have onlys (actually it could work in Munich...).

What will you do in the school holidays? When every family with older children simply won't come (and may lose the habit of doing so)?

And if you go with a model like timetohittheroadjack's, I think you need to revise the figures of those potentially eligible to use the cafe downwards, as they won't all be pfbs.

I suspect you're thinking of a soft play centre with age restrictions and decent food, not a cafe in the usual sense. Because unless you charged an entrance fee, I don't see how you'd make this add up with such a narrow demographic and especially if out of town.

Thanks for all the responses - some very interesting points there.

I think it's easy to try to be all things to all people but this is a rather specialised thing and I think would fall into 'soft play with cafe' rather than 'café with soft play'.

The café would be open 9.30 - 4 on weekdays so the target market would be pre-schoolers anyway, rather than older children. I think under 5s is definitely something for me to think about. It would also be open Saturday and Sunday 9.30 - 3 and then available for private hire from 3pm - 5pm parties.

I would be charging an entrance fee (£5 for walkers and £1.50 for non-walkers) so the revenue would come from the entrance fee, food & drink sales, birthday parties and room hire. The party room would also be hired out to local child related businesses e.g. Baby Ballet and then all the children attending the class would be able to have a 1/2 price play.

The difference between my café and the other soft play places locally is that it will be clean, safe (security buzzer gates at the entrance and a big open room so that you can always see your child) and it will actually serve decent, tasty food. This is definitely something lacking in my area.

TimetohittheroadJack - I understand your points but I live in a big town (last census suggests just over 10,000 0-4 years in the area). I think my point is, parents with older kids already have somewhere to go. It's the little one that don't have anywhere around here where they can play and climb and not have to worry about older kids knocking them over etc.

AuntieStella- with regard to the school holidays, pretty much all the mums I know with under 4s avoid soft play like the plague during the school holidays because of all the bigger kids. We would also put on classes, messy play special offers etc. to draw people in.

£5 is a lot to charge for a 1 year old. That is more than our local soft play charges (4:25 of peak) and they are absolutely enormous with a massive 4 lane slide, an inflatable obstacle course, an area for ball games and a sandpit and petting zoo outside.

I was away this weekend and went to a (much smaller) soft play there. They charged £6 for a 5y.o, a 2 y.o and 4 adults. We were amazed! It was a bit tired looking for had 8000 sq ft. The food was decent but really cheap too God knows how they made a profit!

Google Pup cafe. This is the one in my area. It is very similar to what you describe and the reason it is so popular is because it is clean and safe with a guarded door, the toys are regularly updated and in excellent condition. Food choices are good for children- no sausages and chips in sight.

I agree £5 is a lot but I've been researching this for the best part of a year now and it's the only way to make it financially viable. I'm not trying to make a million but it's going to be pretty much taking up all of my time and I have to make some sort of profit for it to be worth going ahead with.

I live in a big town and I strongly believe that there are plenty of parents who can and will pay more for something better than what there is currently on offer here.

What you've described is very similar to our local soft play cafe (including the entrance fee), which is doing very well, busy almost every time we've been there, lots of people using it for birthday parties too etc.

A few thoughts:

• the out of town location may put people off unless you live in an area where people expect to have to use the car every day. Eg will the location be near a retail park/supermarket that parents are driving to anyway?
• tables around the outside of the space with play area in the middle, so kids are visible while sitting down, is key. The outside play area will need tables too.
• don't worry about targeting younger children, that is a huge attraction at our local place as other soft play centres are dominated by older kids and there's just generally more activities targeted at older kids in the area. Locals were crying out for somewhere safe for younger kids to play.
• do stay open at weekends and school hols. That's when children's centres/playgroups etc are closed so parents can be looking for somewhere to go.
• think about a 'Winter' and 'Summer' business plan. You might have to offer something more to get people in during the Summer months.
• seek local parents views (eg through a local FB group) to get a feel for what the area needs.

Our local cafe is great and when the weather is awful I'm grateful we have it. The kids seem to love it. Good luck!

We have something that sounds very similar to your idea-under 4s, soft play, homecooked food. It's packed from 11.30-1.30, then very quiet. I have a 18 month old really like it there....but it's central and cheap. A few points-
-All of the mums I know (most with 18 ish months old babies)prefer to leave the car/don't drive/don't have access to the car so prefer to stay local or central.
-By 18 months all of my friends seem to want to be in/home by 12.30-3 for naps. Given that older kids need picking up at 3 and won't be able to play at yours you might find it a bit of a wasteland after lunch.
-£5+food and drink is expensive. With my mum mates we did quite a lot of cafes and stuff until the kids were mobile and most returned to work but now go to toddler groups (£2 here with snack, play and cuppa thrown in) or the park or each others houses. These are your competition.
-I think there's a tendency to over estimate how relaxing these places are for parents- I just could not leave ds to play whilst I had a cup of tea, lots of falling over, they squabble over toys etc. For most of us we've found that ordinary cafe followed by play ground or park to be better. Might be best to focus on a really good, baby friendly cafe with play area rather than play area with cafe.
-You'll be packed when it rains though.

Thanks, lots to think about :-)

What about things like ypes of activities and food? What sort of things would you like to see?

types

Activities;
-play kitchen and food, train tracks, sand pit, balls, skittles, ride alongs always go down well. As pp said, nothing that requires too much mess and supervision. At one of my local groups there's always paint and it's a total PITA (always bear in mind some parents have to go to work/about their day afterwards so nothing that can completely muck us up too). Dressing up stuff always gets really manky. Books need reading and as a parent I'm always stressed that ds will tear them (plus there's always the library and I don't know of a family that doesn't have loads anyway). Keep it simple and interesting (and easy to clean). Sensory baskets are good for little babies.

Food;
-No need to be over fussy. Sandwiches, pasta, hummus, pizza, cheese/beans on toast are all fine for lunch. I give ds a good diet at home so when we eat out I just want something he'll eat without too much fuss.
-Similar for me, pasta salad, sandwiches, soup are all fine. Nice tea and coffee and cake obviously!

I am in Canada and two similar cafés went out of business. The first was more of a trendy cafe/pizza place with small play area - lots of high end wooden toys really only good for under 3s. The second was more play area with cafe. One half of the room was for playing one half was cafe. It was for age 6 and under (makes sense to have a wider age limit then people will be your customers for longer). The had some lovely high end play equipment like this www.cedarworks.com/?src=GL&ser=74&orig=SR&mt=B&ag=74d&qw=indoor_playsets&gclid=CO3q-OXZusYCFQ-PaQodHjgJgQ
Look at the indoor play structures.
She also had a train table, ride on toys, big dolls house, playhouse, a bubble machine that would go on every hour for 10 mins. She was very busy in the winter but no business in the summer months. It is a hard mixture to get right and be profitable year round.

I have known two cafes with play areas to close. No entrance fee so Mums sat fot two hours nursing one cup of coffee. So I think an entrance fee is a must but a think five pounds for a walking child will put off people with more than one child. People with a one year old and three year old are not going to pay a tennet plus food and drink unless it is a special treat or your cafe is in a very wealthy area. Tbh I think there is a reason lots of softplays are a bit grotty. The owners are not making enough money to invest in a refurb.

One of the best indoor play areas I ever saw was in a mall. Just a small area say 3 metres x 7 metres it was walled in round the edges and inside everything was padded, a toy boat, car, tree, mushrooms, tree stumps - no loose toys. The kids used to run around inside and love it, parents would lean over the walls and watch. Google Tuff Stuff playground to see examples.
It was so simple and great for imaginative play and burning off energy on a wet day.

We had one locally with no entrance fee and lots of customers totally took the piss with bringing their own food for the kids and then making a total mess everywhere. I definitely think an entrance fee is the way to go - however I think you should offer a sibling discount. I would want to go to a cafe like this but had 3 preschoolers and wouldn't have paid £15.

The one locally had trouble with getting full and would put messages on Facebook saying they were full, no more please. I think the trouble was large NCT groups coming in. You would need to think about how to manage that.

Reminds me of the book - Just Another Manic Mumday - was quite a good easy read and, you never know, you may take some ideas from it!

There's a really nice cafe (just normal cafe) in our small town and they have a notice on the door saying that unfortunately they can't accomadate buggies-I think it's just a round about way of saying no small children. When I first saw it I thought they were nuts as there are so many mums locally...until I went in on a rare child free day. It was packed with everyone else! And they all came, had something to eat and drink and left. Then I looked at me and my friends (before our dcs were walking). We show up and immediately take up loads of space with high chairs etc, our ds take up an adult sized space and have a tea cake, we all sit around drinking coffee for ages then leave a bit of a mess compared with the child-free. I was surprised any cafe owner wanted us!!

I think I'd avoid books and dress up stuff as that involves more parent involvement...maybe plastic/wooden baby toys that are easy to clean, and maybe just some dressing up hats. Colouring pencils, crayons and paper would be good for those that didn't want to go in the soft play area straightaway.

The main thing to me is cleanliness of toys/equipment, and easy baby changing area that smells nice

I go to my local play cafe because it serves good tea and cake and the kids can play - we generally go 2/3 times a week (m/f); today it was shut and we had to go to another coffee shop and it was stressful with 3 toddlers. HOWEVER there is no way I would pay £5 to attend.

I agree £5 per child is far too much - my eldest walked at 9 months and I wouldn't have appreciated paying such a vastly higher amount than the other antenatal group members whose babies were all still crawling - they'd have dribbled on just as many toys!

Also child minders might be a potential market - they won't even becharging £5 per child per hour and won't pay out more than they are earning and more again for food gladly.

I used to be a childminder and had an annual pass for soft play - my regular mindees had them too as it was 5 mins walk from my house. It meant I went a lot (it was really nice and obviously in term time it was automatically under 5s during school hours). Having a pass meant I often suggested it as a venue when meeting friends so I brought them business that way.

Would you do annual passes? Need to be priced right to be less than the cost of entry once a week to be tempting, but they also nearly guarantee people coming back frequently and spending on food and drink, and bringing new business.

Sorry, should have made the pricing a bit clearer. It would be £5 for the first walking child and £1.50 for siblings. I am planning a loyalty scheme/annual pass but I'm still looking at the options there. I would also have special offers for quieter times and a special childminder rate.

NurNoch - I understand £5 is quite pricey. My two also walked at 9 months so I know what it's like to go for a picnic with friends and spend the whole time chasing my child while my friends sit happily on the grass with their babies staying put. That is one of the reasons why I would use a place like this (and pay £5). It's hard to find somewhere safe for toddlers to explore when they first start walking and this would be somewhere that had something for the less mobile babies to do too.

Sibling rates, childminder rates and annual passes are all good ideas - definitely £8 for 3 kids is more palatable than £15! It still sounds expensive to me for what you're offering (we pay not much more for access to a sort of play barn the size of a football stadium, with an indoor "lake" with electric boats, an electric go cart track, trampolines, bouncy castles, a "volcano" climbing structure, a 3 story play frame, a large under 6 area, ride ons and a manned electric train ride as well as a large cafe area which serves good food... You know your local market though - I do think people would need to be quite affluent to be happy to pay that kind of "cover charge" for a cafe with playgroup style toys aimed at the very young on a regular basis, rather than very occasionally when the weather is terrible etc.