(Kid-Friendly) Café Au Play

A couple of you have asked me if during my wanderings I have run into any kid-friendly cafés. It’s not always easy to find places to take kids when you go out. I can understand why. Most of the time, I avoid places where kids are likely to be making lots of noise. However, people with kids (me included) don’t always want to leave them at home and it is nice when to find a place that is geared to handle them.

It is no easy task to run a kid-friendly café. There was an article in the Oregonian last January that discussed the decision of Sip ‘n Kranz, a Pearl district café, to close its kid playroom in an attempt to improve business (the café has since changed ownership and no longer operates as Sip ‘n Kranz). Stories like these are bound to scare others from making their cafés any more accommodating for the little ones, making them few and far between. So when I find kid-friendly cafés, I’ll be sure to tell you about them.

I recently visited a couple of places that were kid-friendly, Gigibar and Bella’s Garage. They are both cafés first and kid-friendly second. By accident, I also stumbled a café whose main objective is to be kid-friendly, Café Au Play. Here’s the back story:

Café Au Play

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Gigibar: A Linguaphile’s Café (closed)

I went to Gigibar the other day out at the corner of 60^th and SE Division to drink some coffee and to meet with a fellow MIM graduate, David Hubbard. I arrived around 10:30am, and had the café to myself when I arrived. Gigi, the owner, greeted me and asked what I wanted to drink. I asked her about her espresso and she told me it was Bella Selva, an organic coffee roasted by K&F Coffees, a Portland company. She said it was a lighter roast that was kind of chocolaty. I ordered a double ($2) and went to sit down. The coffee was nice and toasty, not over-extracted or bitter. 

Gigibar

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