OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 20, 2006 – The owners of two toddler-friendly cafés in Oakland, which may be the first venues of their kind in the country, seem to be onto something.

Play Café Inc. president Kelliane Lam said her business broke even one month after opening in September 2005 and is on pace for a 37 percent increase in total sales this October compared to last.

Tumble & Tea LLC co-owner Georgina DeCarlo said her café has been meeting or exceeding cost since it opened three months ago.

Both businesses have plans to expand.

Lam is seeking to franchise, with the goal of expanding throughout California, and then nationwide. She expects it will be at least 18 months before a second Play Café opens its doors.

DeCarlo and her business partner, Susan Older, want to have five cafés in operation in the next five years. They are now searching for possible locations in San Francisco.
Older said their aim was to provide a “third place” for parents outside of work and home. It’s not unusual to find parents curled up with a magazine on one of Tumble & Tea’s comfy couches, or tapping on a laptop at Play Café, while their children frolic in the cafés’ elaborate and imaginative play areas.

Ted Lingle, executive director of the Long Beach-based Specialty Coffee Association of America, said he had never heard of a café specifically targeting families.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Lingle said. “What comes immediately to mind in terms of the play area is McDonalds, but I can see why, if people wanted to go to a coffee café, they wouldn’t go to McDonalds.”

Rachel Antell, a Tumble & Tea regular, said she knows better than to take her daughter to a regular café now that Talia is 13 months old and walking.

“It just wouldn’t be fun for her,” she said. “And if things aren’t fun for Talia, it’s not gonna be fun for anybody.”

Antell said at other cafés, there’s nothing for her daughter to do but get in trouble.
“She’s gonna spill hot coffee on herself, or run into someone’s chair, or just hurt herself,” she said.

At Tumble & Tea kids move freely in and out of the play area. Talia could not decide what to play with first, an oversized foam block or a puzzle. There’s so much to keep her daughter occupied, Antell said, they often hang out for two hours or more – a long time for a toddler.

Such long stays mean that customers often make several trips up to the café counter during a single visit, DeCarlo said.

“A typical family, they come in the morning, they get settled, they get a latté. And they’re still there, and they come up and get lunch,” she said.

A family could easily spend $20 during one visit between a 12 oz. latte ($2.95), a curry chicken salad ($6.95), an organic peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the “kidfood” menu ($2.95), plus $5.95 for one child admission. Siblings cost $2.
Ted Lingle said the average ticket at a regular café is about $4.50.

Tumble & Tea needs the bigger ticket to pay for its bigger space. The business fills about 3,000 square feet, about seven times the footprint of the most basic café. The play area takes up nearly one-third of the space.

Play Café also charges $5.95 per child – there is no sibling discount – and sells toys in the $10 to $20 range to help parents meet toddler birthday party requirements.
On a busy day, Lam said, as many as 300 people can walk through the door.

Because Tumble & Tea is so new, the café’s customer volume has been fluctuating wildly, Older said. On a recent Friday afternoon, the strollers were double-parked just inside its entrance.

“It was really busy today at lunch,” Older said one Friday. “We probably had close to 75 people counting both adults and children. I was one person shy of shutting the door and doing a waitlist.”

Mothers’ groups and bad weather contribute to crowds at both establishments. With the winter rains coming, eliminating parks as a family hangout, both cafés are bound to get even busier.Tumble

The City of Slidell, just north across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. But unlike the lower parishes of Southeast Louisiana, the water in the Slidell area, for the most part, came in and went out. That allowed the region to recover quickly and tens of thousands of displaced residents have moved in to be close to home, boosting the population by nearly a third.

Still, Slidell businesses that have decided to reopen face uncertain futures.