Courtesy of Roi Shlomo
A new children’s indoor play space, Kids Avenue was created out of a father’s love. Roi Shlomo, the entrepreneur behind Yogli Mogli and Kale Me Crazy, wanted to spend time with his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a safe and educational environment. He was operating an event facility in Buckhead, but he wasn’t passionate about it. “I was going to sublease the space and had a deal in place. It was a rainy weekend, and I was stuck home with my daughter without anywhere to go. I cancelled the deal and turned the space into a kids’ heaven,” he explains.
Kids Avenue opened May 20 on the backside of building on Maple Drive in Buckhead. The 5,000-square-foot space still features the ceiling drapery of its previous inhabitant, as well as the cramped parking lot of a company that relied on Ubers, but for children ages 0 to 7, it’s an imaginative play haven.
I took my nearly 6-year-old daughter and her friend on a recent Saturday afternoon. My initial reaction was shock. It’s like a wave of sound and overstimulation hit the second I walked in. The lobby area is small with a few seats and a wall of cubbies for storing shoes and other belongings. (Both children and adults must wear socks to enter the play area. If you forget, they’re available for purchase for $5.) I had purchased tickets for our 2-hour timeslot in advance, so all I had to do was give my name and we were allowed in. (Tickets cost $24.99 per child and come with one free adult each. Additional adult tickets cost $8.50.)
Photo by Carly Cooper
Attendance is capped at 60 children, but the concrete walls and high ceilings seem to enhance the excited chatter, cries of glee, and parental admonishments around the room. If you’re at all sensitive to sound, this may not be the place for you. It’s like a bounce park without the inflatables. The space is set up like a city with sponsored pretend “shops” like Savi Provisions, A to Z Dentistry, and Kate Batone Beauty around the perimeter. A road runs throughout with ride-on toys and Cozy Coupes up for grabs. In the center are soft climbable structures such as a bridge, mountain, and mushrooms. While they’re aimed at younger children, my daughter and her friend still ran under and over these.
For kids who like to play pretend—my daughter included—Kids Heaven can provide hours of entertainment. She and her friend shopped for groceries, made pizzas, dressed up like fire fighters, and stopped at the beauty salon. They had a blast.
Shlomo says the Kids Avenue staff roam the space, constantly sanitizing and organizing. But on the day that I went, I didn’t see it. The toys were a mess, which is what happens with children—see my daughter’s room after a playdate, or better yet, don’t—but I didn’t see anyone trying to contain it. We found blow dryers at the dentist, toothbrushes at the pizza place, and so on. My friend and I were particularly concerned about the hair tools. With lice a constant threat to schools and camps, we quickly told our girls to pretend without touching the faux flat irons or brushes—which were full of strands of hair—to their hair.
In between collecting flowers, cooking breakfast, and building a wall at Russell Construction, the girls climbed a wall and slid down a slide into a shallow ball pit.
After two hours, we corralled the girls out. There was no checkout or announcement about the time being up, but I was ready to go. My daughter, on the other hand, could’ve stayed longer.
“I really wanted to do something for the community here,” Shlomo says. “To see a vision come to life is the best reward. To see kids dressing up and having fun is the ultimate joy for me.”
Overall, I think it’s a good concept, but there are definitely some kinks to work out.
The post I took my daughter to the new Kids Avenue play space in Buckhead. Here’s what we did. appeared first on Atlanta Magazine.