Charming New Café and Play Space Opens for Perfect Playdates

In my pre-toddler life, I spent lazy Saturdays savoring pastries and flipping through magazines at my neighborhood coffeehouse. Since I refused to give up my habits once the littles arrived, my kids are well versed in our café routine, picking a treat to share while I drink as much of my coffee as possible, before sticky fingers and antsy feet force me to finish my daily caffeine on the playground instead.

Enter Holiday Cafe — a new play space and café in downtown Puyallup that aims to be a community hub for families and neighbors. When I heard about the opening, I made plans with a fellow toddler mom for a coffee and playdate, hoping to improve the experience of my frantic café visits.

An indoor play space for young children

Holiday Cafe welcomes children ages 6 months to 6 years in their curated, light-filled play space. My friend and I miraculously got to chat, almost uninterrupted, for 30 minutes while the kids explored together.

The castle in the center was the star of the show, with lots of climbing, sliding and tunneling opportunities. A light board and soft stacking structures added to the fun, while the pulley basket at the back offered a novel way to engage with toys on the shelf. Curious hands reached for the busy boards lining the back wall for sensory and mechanical input.

The under-1 crowd isn’t forgotten, and you can find a bouncer, soft crawling surfaces, a floor mirror and wooden activity cubes to keep even the tiniest customers entertained.

Open-ended play is the focus here, with materials selected based on Montessori and Waldorf philosophies.

Make reservations for playtime

Holiday Cafe aims to eliminate the crowded and overstimulating aspects of indoor play spaces and limits capacity to six children at a time. This makes reservations crucial, especially on cold and rainy days. Play reservations last for 90 minutes.

The play area is parent-supervised, but with so few kids running around at a time, it was easy to casually keep an eye on everyone, even while sitting at the bar seats or couch outside the play space itself.

The play area is a no-shoes-allowed space, parents included. Socks are required (grippy ones are recommended, and available for purchase if you happen to leave yours at home). The play space and toys are cleaned throughout open play hours, along with daily deep cleaning and sanitization.

The menu at Holiday Cafe

Holiday Cafe offers coffee, snacks and light meals. While we had a cookie interlude to break up our playtime, my family didn’t stay for lunch. My friend and her girls ordered the kids snack plate, where you can build your own kid-friendly board including options such as fruit, yogurt, cheese, veggies and hummus. The adult acai bowls and iced matcha lattes had me considering returning for a breakfast date next time.

Building community

Holiday Cafe operates with three core values: faith, family and community. Their mission “We are the village” is really embodied in this unique space, where children are celebrated and parents are well taken care of. It’s rare to find a place where no one in the family has to compromise and I’ll certainly be adding this spot to my roster to bring a little more celebration into my week.