Has anyone ever set up a soft play/cafe type place and can give me some basic advice?

[DitaVonCheese]

My five year plan is to set up a child-friendly cafe space - not actually soft play but an alternative to that I guess - very like Cafe Junior in Cardiff.

We may have a (small) lump sum available in the near future from a house sale so want to start looking at this seriously but I have no idea where to start.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Something I can read? Things to think about?

Have a double gate exit system, one of the ones near me doesn't and I have found a young child wandering alone because he had managed to slip out unseen. The best one near me has a gate then a door that only staff can open.

Somebody around here tried but failed to get planning permission. :(

I think she started with a plan which included all the legal stuff about kids/food. Then looked for premises.

I believe this org was v helpful. www.playproviders.org.uk/

I'd also contact that have already done it, if they are obviously not going to be competiton and vise versa, they might be willing to give you some insight.

Good luck.

We've had a few come and go locally. They all seem to do a roaring trade for about a year then close down. Thinking about the one that has stayed open, it caters for an older audience, as well as pre-schoolers ie have football pitches, laser quest, climing walls etc.
If you can put on low cost holiday activites people will be bite you're arm off. Our local tennis club ran a week of half day mixed sports sessions. Think it was £5 for half a day. They had lots of PE students from local college running the sessions (tennis, football stuff like that). Every session was full.

I always thought a cafe that welcomed parents and children would work well in our village and my ideas included: A dressing up area, quality toys to play with, drawing / creative area, role play. Good quality, healthy food options that don't break the bank. I also thought you could do story sessions, face painting and cooking sessions with the littlies to promote and get people in. Our local cafe is so unchild friendly, big glass tables, no room for buggies etc. Who knows maybe in the future I'll get round to it too! Basically a place for mums to congregate and spend a couple of hours. There's a lot of yummy mummies that lunch put there!

I think it's a good idea. Where our local soft plays have failed, it's because they concentrated on (fairly poor) soft play areas and then compounded things with very average, expensive food. When we then have really nice weather (ok not currently relevant!) noone went.

If you had a really nice cafe which had the bonus of play areas, then I think it would work much better. Good coffee, hot chocolate etc. Easy but nice food - doesn't need to be complicated but does need to be nice - things like jacket potatoes, good quality sausages, sandwiches with tasty fillings. I'd go there (where are you thinking of opening?!!)

You might like to have a look at this one. They are definitely a (small) soft play with cafe. It seems to work well. As far as I can see, they charge about £5 per child just to play, and then food/drink is not too badly priced. They don't have other toys. They do fantastic children's parties and host lots of other things which get parents and kids in (e.g. baby signing, that fingerprint jewellery).

I'm not sure this is an easy money-maker though. There is a perfectly nice cafe on the corner, which has a room at the back with toys for littlies. It's pleasant, but too small for many people to be in there at the same time, and we don't spend very much for the amount of time we're in there. It's owned by one of our neighbours, but I haven't dared ask them how it's doing - I can't see that it's busy enough to make much money.

I really don't like soft play places much. We go a lot to cafes and I like ones which have a child friendly attitude - and often we go to ones inside parks, as no one in their right minds who doesn't like kids would go to a park cafe, and there are usually lots of kids. In any weather except really wet weather you can sit outside.

There is a market though perhaps not me for the kind of thing outlined by IsItNotMeOr - but I think that one is quite expensive, particularly once you have more than one child over 2. That Place on the Corner in Hackney, on the edge of Stoke Newington/Newington Green, offers a slightly different model - I went to a baby massage course there but considering it was a children's cafe, I didn't find it the most relaxing place to hang out with a 6 month old (who's now 5). But the cafe is still going so others clearly like it more. They have class sessions with a charge, I don't think they have soft play.

I think some cafes are primarily cafes but put on stuff for the mum n baby crowd for a payment of a few pounds per session (I tend to go for freebie/cheaper stuff run by children's centres/libraries/voluntary sector organisations), and take my kids to cafes which don't necessarily have so much special fun but are welcoming to us.

elkiedee - I know what you mean about more child-welcoming cafes. What do you think it is that makes a cafe child-welcoming though? They definitely will offer child-friendly food. The ones around here also offer crayons etc for the kids to play with, and sometimes breadsticks, while they're waiting for their food.

The one I like best have things out which it's obviously ok for a child to explore - e.g. one has some old telephones which DS loves to explore (gently, of course!) and they have an outside area with interesting hosepipes. Most importantly, the staff behave as if they want him to be there. I should stress we never would let him run around in a busy cafe, because that's not safe, but we will get up with him and walk around to let him stretch his legs. Perhaps this is a London thing, where there aren't so many places to walk immediately outside most cafes?

Many thanks for the replies, very interesting reading :)

I think it's more about attitude than food. One of our favourite cafes is a large cafe, probably Turkish but with all sorts of stuff on the menu - my kids like to have egg and chips or pancakes, and the cream off mum's hot chocolate (I don't like the cream and wouldn't have cream on my drink otherwise). They don't have much that's child specific but they do have highchairs, but nothing's too much trouble for them to accommodate. I first went there with the local breastfeeding support group, and 2 years later with ds2 that group, mostly totally different people were going there. Once there were 8 mums and buggies with 9 babies (including a set of twins).

IsItMe, that's why park cafes are the best, outside space to walk about in. Preferably ones that aren't too near a main road.

elkiedee - I only twigged on the park cafes last night. It's a revelation!

We're in London too - one of our local parks redid the playground and a terrace outside the cafe just before I went back to work from maternity leave with ds1. As I went back in March, it was great timing, we used to collect him and head straight for the park through the summer, he learned to walk there and everything.

DS2's first multi word phrases included "go park" and "more park".

Since then our other nearest park in the opposite direction has opened a lovely cafe, now open 7 days a week including Sundays - we go there most Sundays when the other cafe isn't open. The outside space is nicer too because it's further from the road and is a better playing space, though the playground is further away.

I'm just glad my area renovated all its parks just before all the spending cuts and as I was having kids - DS2 especially was born at a point when local services for kids were at their best (2009).

There was one near us but the play section shut down when it was sold. The new owner said his insurance was too much with the liability of toys/children even though they weren't actually looking after kids. He may have just being saying that but it's worth looking into.

watching with interest.... thinking of doing exactly the same thing in same circumstances (sum of money from house sale :D) and am currently putting together a rough business plan. to get an idea of figures, can I be cheeky and ask how much you are all willing to pay for a soft play session? And how often do you visit? Also, I am hoping to have a healthy menu, however, this is often expensive - so which is more important to you all, price or quality of food? Sorry to gate-crash, but hopefully these answers will help OP too :)

This website has been quite helpful :) www.shareandcompareplay.com/dotnetnuke/

:)

Hello silly :)

I am a cheapskate and like to pay £3.50 for soft play - I will go up to £4.50 but will do a cat's bum mouth and feel slightly resentful. I'm in the NW (assuming it is more expensive down south). I've actually cut down my soft play habit a lot and probably only go once a month or so now, but when DD was smaller we used to go a lot, couple of times a week when we had a season pass, as it would tire DD out and I'm not very imaginative/active Now she is at preschool for half the week/we live in a house with an actual garden so I have less pressure to entertain her.

My plan involves charging slightly less than soft play (as mine won't be soft play so hopefully insurance etc will be less, though obv will need to do my sums) and have an outdoor space as well :)

all have a short lifespan here except the one that costs £1.50 for over 1s, free for under 1s

It is mostly a restraunt in its own right though

Oh and the free one attatched to a McDonalds has been open more than a year too

the others.. charge too much.. the food is crap.. they get tired and dirty (don't mind tired if its £1.50 or free)

Another one closed this week here actually, which is odd because it always seemed very busy to me? - actually probably the busiest! I guess the insurance/overheads took a lot to be covered.. and the food there was AWFUL junk food!

i think if you csn manage an outdoor area this would be an asset as no one wants to cooped up in a sweaty play area on a warm day, but a sheltered secure and safe outdoor play area with cafe seating sounds so much more appealling. maybe a big canopy/ awning for showery days as kids can play in rain but sitting drinking coffee on a damp seat is a no no.

yeah I like the one with the outside area, its v small but its enough, also worth having a room off the main room that you can hire out to baby sensory/music/yoga etc classes - pester power will mean loads will stay after for soft play!

actually I take all that back, all you need is a captive market! Used to live in a town with a GROTTY smelly filthy expensive soft play where the change areas were up a narrow windey stairs and there was no buggy park area. It stayed in business as it was the only soft play for a couple of towns over

Here there's a choice, and they drop like flies unless they're free or as good as free - no matter what new angle they spin on it!

Above all make sure it is cleaned thoroughly every day. Our local Wacky Warehouse is famous for providing all entrants with a free dose of the Noro virus. I would agree with a very safe, secure gate system so that toddlers cannot get out by themselves. Fruit/water etc for sale. I really don't want to byt my childrne a plate of chips but they do need some refreshment. Plenty of safe parking.

I can tell you what I like when I visit a cafe/play place with the DC (I could actually tell you face to face this afternoon but as I am MNing at the moment, here are my pearls of wisdom )

• Fresh Milk - I hate the long liife, UHT stuff that soft play places will only give you one of so you suffer the most awful tea and coffee. I never understand why they don't make the food and drink fabulous - afterall, parents are stuck for hours.

• An outdoor play space would be great - rain or shine. Like going to the park except with tea & cake for me.

• Clean & non-smelly venue (& toilets), tables that don't remind of the school canteen & clean, genuinely friendly staff (starting to think this speaks volumes about some of the crap SP places I have been to.

• Kids food with variety rather than nuggets/fish fingers/sausage & chips. We went to a place which served a childrens platter. I think DD got some sultanas, cucumber, carrot sticks, chicken goujons, strawberries, a few curly fries, little square of carrot cake. Much more interesting than deep fried everything.

• Don't charge me for my under 1yr old baby. I won't come back on principle no matter how much DD1 enjoyed herself.

• DD1's favourite place at the moment is the cafe in the farm shop down the road - to sit outside and watch the ducklings. Kids don't always need neon climbing equipment to have fun. Outdoor garden games would keep her happy.

I probably have lots more but won't go on..

I think its a fab idea though. I think lots of play places are competing on size or price rather than quality.

there is one near me that has gone strenght to strength. They have a nice cafe with good coffee and healthy luches and snacks, soft play, a small outside area, quite corner with books and toys, air hockey, small shop area.
Membership was £60 a year now £99 I believe, usually busy.
I have always thought it a good business idea if you can bear the sound of screaming children all day every day!
This one is set in an industrial area in a huge wearhouse, lots of free parking.

absolutely hate the ones where you give the time as you go in then as you leave you pay per hour!

parking! I go a bit out of my way to go to one with free parking. If you have a council car park near the premises you can do the ticket refund thingie for people who have had to pay to park?

Thanks all - Cherie, I'm actually looking into it because I teach antenatal/baby classes and it's a nightmare finding decent venues, so thought I might as well start my own

Dita - this may be way of your thing but a friend of mine recently went to her usual soft play place & found they'd let a beautician set up in there.

She managed to get a manicure while her 4 year old played & 5 month old slept

May be worth thinking about - even if you can get someone mobile to do 20 minute treatments...I know I'd be game!

Good luck