PNW-inspired play café to let Pierce Co. parents relax while kids play
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sea Play Café will soft-open on the Key Peninsula in early July.
- The coastal village–themed play space will be located in Key Plaza.
- Memberships are planned at $50 monthly with a discount for kids under 1.
A new play café on the Key Peninsula will offer young families a bit of sanctuary this summer.
Ashley and Joe Pepowski, interior designers with two kids of their own, plan to soft-open Sea Play Café in early July. They’re working through permitting and making improvements to the space in a commercial building in Key Plaza, at 11901 137th Ave. NW. It used to be an office space, according to their permit application to Pierce County.
The goal is to make it feel almost like “a vacation spot,” Ashley Pepowski said, adding that she and her husband have visited many Airbnbs on their travels and “know the anxiety of going someplace and it’s not yours.”
“When you walk in ... you can relax and have your kids play without worrying if they’re going to damage anything,” she said.
The Pepowskis are hand-building the play structure, which will look like a coastal village with a Pacific Northwest theme, she said Ashley. Highlights include a lighthouse, a fire station where kids can dress up like firefighters and fight pretend flames on a magnetic wall, and a restaurant with a pretend pizza oven.
The space will also have a reading nook that looks like a secret garden and a baby crawl zone that looks like a sandcastle, she continued.
Designed for kids ages 0-8, the space is particularly suited for children sensitive to bright colors and noise, with toys and structures in muted shades. Their own kids have autism and ADHD, Ashley Pepowksi said, and they’re designing the space for kids like them.
While kids play, parents will be able to watch them from a seating area and buy prepackaged snacks and beverages, including shelf-stable coffee, through a self-serve kiosk. Parents will also be able to buy small play packs with coloring pages if their kids want something calmer to do.
Ashley Pepowski, a party planner, said she also plans to invite families to ticketed events once a month when she’ll decorate the space and bring in special activities. Some will have themes, like dinosaurs. She eventually hopes to host these events weekly.
Memberships will cost $50 a month, meaning that you can bring your child as many times as you’d like that month for $50 (though not more than once a day), she estimated. The plan is to add on $15 to bring a sibling, and the total cost will go down to $35 a month to bring a child under 1.
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They’ll also have daily passes and are thinking of charging $14 for those, though Ashley said she’s still nailing down the price. The plan is to open Monday through Saturday, she said.
A section of the space will be reserved for the Pepowskis’ interior design office. The two own a design firm called Sketch & Sea Design.
According to Ashley, there aren’t many spaces on the Key Peninsula for parents to relax or get work done while watching their kids. As a mom herself, she finds her own yard is often the only option.
“ ... there’s nowhere I can really go to get that break,” she said.
In the future, the Pepowskis hope to find a bigger location and expand their coffee offerings. Ashley said they’re both “dreamers” and excited about the potential for what is — at least for now — an empty space.
“ ... I’m hoping that we can slowly start jumping on making the community a little bit larger, more tight-knit, adding more family-based businesses to the area,” she said.
