Toys

The other day I read this post. I love Amber Dusick's blog. She frequently has me in tears from laughing so hard. But that particular post sort of captures how much fun it is for me to gather all the toys for our store. Maybe you never really grow out of liking toys, (or maybe I never did, and that's why I've got such a passion for play cafes!). Anyway, I've got a master spreadsheet going and am trying to get the best stuff sourced for the best prices, so we can have more to play with. I am feeling a little bit of pressure since I know all you other parents out there are also looking for the best toys at the best prices to put under your Christmas trees. If anybody buys anything awesome on amazon and leaves only one more item in stock, let me know! I'm living in fear a bit. ; ) But I do have tricks other than amazon up my sleeve too just so you know.

I thought it might be fun to feature some of the toys I'm picking up to give you a little preview of what we will have in the store. Today I'll show two of our infant toys. This is the Wonderworld Peek-a-boo ball. I think it's really cute and can't wait to see your little crawlers chasing it around the baby area.


Also from Wonderworld are these stacking rings.



What baby does't love stacking rings right? I did opt for the nontoxic painted wooden version for us. It's just so much prettier, still cleanable, and green too. Win, win, win.

More toy profiles will be coming up soon. Don't forget to put your two cents in if you think there's something we really need to have. I'm all ears!

Home sweet home

We signed our lease for our store today! It was a long time coming, but I am really happy about where we landed. Our new home is 405A East Chapel Hill Street in downtown Durham. It is a really nice space with a layout that will be perfect for cordoning off our play areas. It has a lot of what we need in terms of kitchen equipment already there, which makes our buildout less expensive, and faster as well. And the bathroom has such pretty tile! You'll love it.

It is SO exciting to stand there and see the actual shape of what we've been thinking about and planning for for so long. Having the location nailed down allows all the really fun details to begin to come together as well. A general layout will soon lead to specific toys and furniture that will be the stuff of relaxation and third space escape for us and our kids. And the extra exciting thing is that our  construction timeline has actual dates in it! (I superstitiously feel like I shouldn't reveal them over the interwebs. You never know how long things are going to take, ahem. --Lesson learned from lease negotiation.) It should be very soon that we can invite you to our grand opening! And our preview party for our super-supporters from kickstarter! Get excited folks! This is for real!

Now that things are rolling with our physical location, you can expect much more frequent updates over here about what is happening. But for now mark this address as our new home (and yours!)!

Leases, and grease traps, and sofas, oh my!

Just a little hello to keep you posted about what we are working on these days. We are still trying hard to get our location nailed down. This is taking some time, but we hope to be able to give you an update on that soon.

In the meantime, we have been forging some great connections in the community--talking to local farmers we hope to source some of our snacks from, meeting with other businesses we'd like to partner with for things, and just making new friends who didn't know about our kickstarter campaign but are really excited to hear that we are coming to town.

We've also been getting down to the nitty gritty of figuring out details like equipment specs, grease trap requirements, and order processing times for sofas. Lots and lots of math, folks. I'm doing it so you don't have to. : ) Just come and enjoy the fruit of my labor once we hit our big opening day. Can't wait to see you there!

Essie

Today Stay & Play bought it's first real asset- our espresso machine! We now own a La Cimbali M30 Dosatron! She is red, and experienced, and was making espresso just this morning at her old restaurant. But we are really excited to have her join the Stay & Play team! We even named her. Essie. I am so excited to think of all the happy parents she will warm up, satisfy, and caffeinate in our store. We are currently trying to rig her up in the house so we can really hone our brewing skills.

Here are a few photos.

I think Essie has always wanted to work in a play cafe. Evidence: she came to us with a Curious George sticker on one of her knobs.

So great to see this first piece of the cafe become tangible! Stay tuned! We'll keep you posted as more comes together.

Wheels are turning

Even though the interwebs have been quieter about Stay & Play over the past few weeks after our big finish, the wheels have been continuing to turn over here. Not we are getting into the exciting business of choosing a physical location for the cafe, which will help us define a lot more variables and details related to our plans. Once the lease is official, we'll do a big reveal and tell you about why we are excited about the space. But for know, just know that we are!

Also in the works is a new website. It sure is exciting to look at our "SUCCESSFUL!" kickstarter page, but now that we are for real we need something a bit more permanent. Hopefully that should be up and running in a week or so. Once we have it together, you will be able to find details in an organized and central location there, as they develop. It is going to be really really exciting to see this all come together. Stay tuned!

We did it! You did it!

Well well well, we've bought ourselves a play cafe. : ) It was quite a dramatic finish! We had a whopping 65 new backers today to add to the 157 earlier bird backers we starter with 24 hours ago. 222 people are in and we are going to go! THIS IS SO EXCITING! I am abuzz with thoughts and ideas and plans that now get to become concrete. I am so thankful for everyone that put their faith in this concept and am ready to give it my all to make this place awesome.

Please let me know if you have suggestions about how to do it, and let's get to work!

Oh, just wanted to also leave you with this picture (it's by Jeremy B) that I've had open in my browser for the last week or so when it looked anything but sure:

And then we didn't fail! Yayyyyyy!!!!!! But just be reminded guys, try! You never know. Look, we did it!

Last day!

Wow! The last day or so has been really exciting! We are getting really close, even as we are running out of time. And we have had some lovely press. The Stir Crazy Moms of Durham wrote such a nice post about us, it was like a nice cup of tea and a hug to kick off the last 24 hours. Then we got another great surprise when Go Ask Mom on wral.com posted about us again to remind people how short our time is. Whatever happens, it has been so so nice to feel the support of our community for this plan. I really hope we get it and we can all have a big group hug and high five over at the cafe soon!

10 hours left! Let's see what the day brings!