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Mallory and Main Street Play Cafe: Where Morton Kids Run Their Own Town
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What happens when you recreate an entire town in miniature—complete with local Morton businesses—and let kids run the show?
In this episode, we sit down with Mallory Swanson, owner of Main Street Play Cafe, Morton's newest family destination that opened in February 2024. Mallory didn't just open another play space—she built a kid-sized version of our actual community, approaching local businesses to create miniature versions of their stores, offices, and services.
We talk about the journey from concept to opening day, the challenges of launching a family business with her husband, and what it means to create a space where kids don't just play—they explore, imagine, and connect with their own community in a whole new way.
Mallory shares the moment she knew Morton needed this, the response from local businesses when she pitched her vision, and the rewarding experience of watching friendships form and families gather in her play cafe. Whether you're a parent looking for the perfect place for your kids, an aspiring entrepreneur wondering how to turn an idea into reality, or simply someone who loves celebrating what makes Morton special—this conversation is for you.
Main Street Play Cafe is located at 2059 S Main Street in Morton. Find their hours and more at mainstreetplaycafemorton.com.
Morton MUSE & News celebrates the small-town values, businesses, and people that make Morton special. Thank you for supporting local stories and the voices that make our community thrive.
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“Hey friends! If you’ve enjoyed hearing stories from right here in Morton—our businesses, our schools, our neighbors—you can help keep this podcast going.
Every little bit counts—whether it’s a one-time tip or a small monthly gift. It helps cover the cost of hosting, equipment, and producing each episode.
Visit a link below to pitch in and be part of keeping Morton Muse & News growing strong. Thanks for supporting local voices!”
Direct support links:
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Muse Morton (the studio and gallery)
POD00041
POD00041
[00:00:00]
Speaker: Here we go.
Welcome to Morton Muon News, where we bring you events, highlight the voices, and celebrate the unique charm of our community. From local happenings and business spotlights to heartfelt interviews with people who make Morton special. This is your go-to source for staying connected with all things Morton.
Tune in and let's discover what makes our town truly remarkable. One story at a time.
Hello and welcome back to Morton Muse and News. This is Ben Vandenberg, your host here at Muse over on Queen Wood. It is March 17th, but it feels like it's December the second. I think my watch here says it is 23 degrees outside, and that's a little bit of an overstatement. If you were able to tune into the last episode, you were able to listen to a story about Joe Donahue who opened up a new bakery called Tradecraft over on Queen.
And it is a fantastic. Listen, if you [00:01:00] haven't had a chance, go ahead and go back through the show's notes and check that out. It according to my notes here, let's see. Joe's episode has pulled in over a hundred downloads so people are listening to his story from all sorts of different kinds of places.
Hopefully they're trying to catch up on Joe's story and when they pass through more and then go pick up some of his croissants and whatnot. Today I'm here though to share with you about another new business that well, it was new to me because my kids are outside of that that age group yet, but it is a play space and it is located over in the field shopping center I have here in the studio.
Mallory Swanson. Hi Mallory. How are you? Hey,
Speaker 2: good, how are you?
Speaker: Good. I'm really eager to learn about the, the spark, the moment where you were like, Hey, I wanna do this thing. And it's a little bit different 'cause I went to your play space, your play cafe and I can't say that I've ever seen anything quite like that before.
And it is quite a brilliant spin and concept that you have going on there. Thank you. And I'm really interested into kind of finding out what that spark was. [00:02:00] But before we get to that, like I always like to do, I wanna give you a couple minutes to tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, where do you live?
Do you live in Morton? What's your background? Let's spend about three to five minutes. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who's Mallory?
Speaker 2: I am a mama, four
Speaker: Mama. 4, 4,
Speaker 2: 4 kids. My husband name is Todd. He we live in Morton originally. I grew up in Laken, which is about 45 minutes north here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: He's from PAs, Galesburg, west of here.
Speaker: Okay.
What brings you guys to this area?
Speaker 2: He was an engineer. He was started at Cat. Okay. Went to Bradley, started at Cat and now he's at Precision Planting..
. I grew up in Lake.
And then went to college.
At, I had my son at 22. Okay. I was a single mom. Then I worked my way through surgical technology school.
I went, became a surgical technologist. Surgical
Speaker: technology. Yeah. Were you in surgery? Like that
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you're basically like, you hand them the instruments and you hold the retractors and you Oh, do whatever you, yeah.
Speaker: Sounds kind of gross.
Speaker 2: It was pretty cool. I learned a lot.
Speaker: Okay. And
Speaker 2: then after that, or I worked at an oral surgeon's office for four years [00:03:00] and then
then I met my husband and then I went back to
Speaker: shout out to Todd.
Speaker 2: Todd. Yep. Todd.
We got married, then I went back to school to be a nurse.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: In nursing school, COVID happened. I had three Uhhuh, our three little girls we had while I was in nursing school. So I had, my 8-year-old was six months old when I started the program. And my youngest is now five. She was like six months old when I finished.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker 2: So it was, it was a long three years.
Speaker: And at that point in time, were you around here in the area?
Speaker 2: Yep, we were in Morton. Just right outside of town. Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: And then worked as a nurse for a while and then just decided that the fi the long shifts and being away from the kids.
Oh.
Speaker: How tough was that?
Speaker 2: It was tough. Like
Speaker: to come to that conclusion.
Speaker 2: Um, I mean I still tech, I still work as a Darce. I sub at the Morton School District in the nurse's office when I can. Okay. When I don't have time, I still sub, which is fun.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: But it's a lot more fun being at the play cafe and making
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Being all the little faces.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, [00:04:00] yeah.
Speaker 2: Having fun every day and I can bring my kids to work with me. That's important. Like I, I love kids. Like I've always loved kids love me. I've always just been the one to sit at the kid table
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And hang out with kids other than
Speaker: kids
Speaker 2: are cooler. We're talking to grownups.
Speaker: Yeah.
Grownups are lame.
Speaker 2: They can't be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I just, I,
Speaker: I can say that undeniably like, yeah. I taught in the school too, so I understand what you mean about that affection towards being a model towards a kid and just like being a good listener and letting the kid talk and Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then I. Had this idea, well, we can go to that.
Speaker: Yeah, let's jump into that. So around what time, was this before you ended? Well, at some point in time you had to actually make the switch, but how much, how long before you decided to, I'm gonna go ahead and pull away from nursing Yes. And push into this, this idea, this concept.
Yeah. Where was the inception of that idea? How long before months, years was it something that you saw somewhere?
Speaker 2: So I was still, I was working PRN, so as needed, I would help out at the hospital. And then I first thing kind of one, it was a combination of different events that kind of led me to the [00:05:00] play cafe.
So one day, it was January of 24, I was meeting a friend with my 3-year-old, probably at the time, she was probably three at the library for story time. And they were like, sorry, we're full. You can't come in. And then I'm like, really? There's that much? The public library. The public library. And I'm like, man, there's that much demand for the.
Non-electronic.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Things to do when it's cold or raining out. Mm-hmm. And then that kind of got my brain spinning. And then my husband is an engineer and he's in research and development. He was always like the mind of, Hey, let's invent something. What can I invent? So I can retire tomorrow. Mm-hmm.
So he was always on this he was inventing this thing where our, the gator would pick up our garbage cans by themselves kind of thing. And then, so I was always, I got into this mind of like, man, I wanna invent something. I wanna do something. Be my own boss.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay. My brain started thinking like that.
'cause of him. Okay. And then, then a couple weeks later, I was my kids were outside playing. It was decently nice out and they had this little wooden ice cream cone set and they just played for hours. And they don't really, we [00:06:00] don't do that, that many electronic type things. Tv. They just, kids' brains don't, in my mind, kids can't handle electronics or, and screens and iPads and all the things that are made to be addictive in children.
So we don't do that much. We have never when, since they've been little and they just play. Yeah. They use their imaginations, they play outside, they play with toys. And they just play together. And then
Speaker: so one day they're playing with this ice cream cone set
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yeah, like I'm like ice cream shop.
And then, ah, so then another all like about two to three weeks time we were at the Bloomington Museum children's, the Discovery Museum. Amazing place over in
Speaker: that town. Normal,
Speaker 2: yes.
Speaker: Yeah, that place is great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so we were there and they had the VTIs Pizza place and they were obsessed with the
Speaker: Ah,
Speaker 2: I know what you're talking
Speaker: about.
Speaker 2: Yep. They had the little toast, the little pizza. They
Speaker: had a little oven pizza
in.
Speaker: I think they even had a little delivery car.
Speaker 2: Yes. It's so cute. And then I'm like, then I came home ice cream and I'm like, I just, what if I did an entire town in Morton?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Or you know what? Tiny town.
Speaker: At this point in time though, was this like just in your [00:07:00] driveway or were you thinking bigger scale, like business style?
Speaker 2: I was thinking of a business. Okay. I was like, what if I just created, I pay rent somewhere and then I get all these sponsors and make a whole town for kids to just play in. They can go to Doctor was in my head and I had the Martin Community Bank in my head and I had a gym in my head and so I kind of started.
Okay.
Speaker: And an ice cream place.
Speaker 2: And the ice cream. Yeah. Yeah. So I had things on, I'm like, what if the kids, the things that they just had a town that was their size, they could just run the town.
Speaker: Adorable.
Speaker 2: And so I started coming up with like business names and looking at other, like doing my business plan and, um, talking.
Did you
Speaker: find anything that's similar to that?
Speaker 2: They're not sponsored.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: So then I started looking at Playhouse companies to see like how much I would, how much it was gonna be to build these playhouses. And there's a couple companies that deliver them and assemble them, but they were like up to $20,000
Speaker: fortune
Speaker 2: for these.
Their, one of their slogans was like, playhouses as nice as your apartment or something. Yeah.
Speaker: The rest of the story takes off from there. You get the business model concept in your head and at some point in time you're starting to do some [00:08:00] investigation and you're like, Hey.
How much of this can I outsource? And if I can't outsource it, next comes the whole idea. DIY you gotta do it yourself. Right?
Speaker 2: Got the idea, got my business plan. I talked to a lot of community moms and parents and grandparents and sit would you guys come?
Like, what? Yeah.
Speaker: Would
Speaker 2: you all like, like the pricing model, what would you pay? What you know, would this be something you even want around here? And obviously people, they're like, yes, we it. Yeah. They're your friends. We love it. Yeah. They were my friends. Yeah. I did polls on Facebook. People didn't even know just to see if this was gonna be a hit or not.
And then I started, I got on my computer and I found this webpage that you can design your house. Okay. And I designed it up. I mocked it up with this 3D thing and I put like a just play house. Play house. Play house. Play house. Yeah. Vehicle. Vehicle. And had a, like a mockup. Of what was in my head and I had a little coffee area in the front and just a line of play, basically what it turned out to be.
Speaker: Wow. So that early on
Speaker 2: bought that early on? Yeah. Okay. And then I took [00:09:00] that to, I emailed hundreds, thousands of emails. I emailed everybody around Hey, we have this, I have this idea. What do you think? Do you wanna be a sponsor? Do you want a mini warrant? Community bank?
Speaker: Do you want at this point in time, hold on, pause.
Have you found a location?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker: You, so you're just still thinking conceptually, sponsorship wise. Yep. Before you even start, had you even started looking for a location or, I, I, I had started
Speaker 2: looking and seeing what
Speaker: I mean, 'cause the demands on that are pretty specific. You can't have
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker: A disjointed, it can't be like an old doctor's office or an old dentist's office where there's little corridors or anything like that.
You need to have this larger space.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. I spent months looking for a space I, everywhere around here.
Speaker: Between what? Morton?
Speaker 2: Peoria, east, Peoria, Washington, Tremont. I've looked, I looked everywhere for a space out. I knew the size I wanted.
Speaker: That's a pretty big size.
Speaker 2: Pretty big size. It's four. We ended up with 4,800 square feet, which is about per like that's what I wanted.
I didn't wanna go any smaller than that. Bigger than that. You can't see your, you know, I want you to be, the concept was I want to be able to see my kids wherever I [00:10:00] look like they can't go in upstairs level, so, okay. Back
Speaker: to Right. No, I understand what you're saying. All on one floor.
Speaker 2: Right. So that was part of the, what my spark was.
Okay. Also was, 'cause I was another, we had a, we were meeting a friend back in January of 2024. We met at the Peoria Playhouse and my, I had three girls under three and we all went, some of the moms were sitting there talking to each other. But I'm chasing my children every corner
Speaker: because you can't keep up
with '
Speaker 2: em.
I can't keep up. They all wanna go to one station. They all wanna go. One wants to go upstairs, one wants to go play in the egg, drop the farm, and yeah. Alone as a mom who was staying home with her, working part-time. I can't, it was too stressful to even go Yeah. Somewhere like that to meet friends because they're, it's just, I want my eyes on my kids at all times, so it was just,
Speaker: yeah.
Speaker 2: Then I'm like, I just need a place where I can talk to mom friends and see them and just get a moment to just get outta my living room. Mm-hmm. Socialize. Get outta the house, talk to other humans, grown up humans.
Speaker: So all this comes from a deep personal need.
Speaker 2: Personal need. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And then you're
Speaker: just tuned into it maybe more than the average [00:11:00] person, maybe.
Yeah. You're, no, I, because I've been at the Peoria Playhouse and I know that conflict of Hey you're split. You want to copy yourself and send two of you out into the, into the building and Yeah. The risk of losing one while you're looking for the other is just like, Hey, no, you gotta come with me.
And then they're upset that they got pulled from the whole
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: You know,
Speaker 2: or I'd have my mom or my mother-in-law meet me there just 'cause then it would be another eyes on
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another kid.
Speaker: And even when you're doing that, you're not having any times with another adult.
Speaker 2: Right. Because you're all watching, you're
Speaker: just, just all kind of running around separate directions.
Speaker 2: So it was something that there was a lack of around here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: For me. Yeah. And then, COVID happened and we were stuck at home for so many months.
Speaker: Yeah. So this came
Speaker 2: mainly just being a stay at home mom. Like I worked part-time, but I was home a lot with the kids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which was amazing. But it's a lot to just stay and do children's stuff only. Yeah. You know, and it's just a repetitive thing where it's nice to get out
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And talk to other parents when it's raining or cold or hot.
Yeah. And you know what, around here we don't get that many great days.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Even in the summer it gets [00:12:00] too darn hot and then it's, or it's raining and, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Or it's freezing cold, so it's like, there was not much to do. And then the part of the coffee was, around the same time I went through the Starbucks line and one of my kids had to go to the bathroom.
And you can't get out, once you're in a Starbucks line, you can't back up and you can't go forward. You're stuck.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Or you're giving up your spot.
Speaker 2: You can't there's one way. You can't get out. You can't
Speaker: Oh. Drive through,
Speaker 2: drive, drive-through.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah.
Drive-through. And I'm like stuck here. I was so tired. I mean, I didn't go to Starbucks that much, but I'm like, let's just skip the Starbucks stop and come straight to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Get your coffee, gourmet coffee bar and,
Speaker: okay. Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, we're fast forwarding a little bit though.
So to summarize though you felt like just an observation of yourself being a mostly stay home mom with your three young girls, that there was lacking a place for you to be able to meet with other adults and to be able to monitor and supervise your children and let those kids have good quality play time that didn't involve iPads and video games
Speaker 2: and, yes, exactly.
You know what they're playing, but they're learning. [00:13:00] Yeah, they are. They're, they're counting money. They're gonna, the grocery store, they're. You know, learning how to be a community member, they're on the firetruck,
Speaker: right? Well, they're learning. They're learning to disagree with each other. They're learning to compromise, they're learning to share and they're gonna have meltdowns.
Like adults have meltdowns too, and they're bigger and louder but you know, they're having them there and they're compared to the kids who aren't having them. 'cause they're at home sitting on an iPad.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker: And then when they do come into conflict with another kid, they don't know how to handle it.
Right, exactly. 'cause they've only had one or two of those opposed to the other kids that are actually playing around with other kids. Exactly. And having that experience over and over again. Okay, so this is 2024.
Speaker 2: So 2024 had the idea, January, February, started working on the business plan,
Speaker: sending out thousands of emails.
Speaker 2: Lots of emails like
Speaker: research,
Speaker 2: walking into businesses saying Here's my com, here's my mockup. Oh, this is my idea. What do you
Speaker: think? So at this point in time, you had the idea, I'm gonna go into local businesses and I'm gonna say, Hey, this is what I wanna build.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: Do you want your business to be represented in my little tiny kid down?
Speaker 2: [00:14:00] Exactly.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then. A couple months went by where I, people were like, nobody wanted to be the first one to say yes. Yeah. That's to this, that's the first one's
Speaker: the hook,
Speaker 2: right? Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I didn't even have a location yet. I had one that I really wanted. Mm-hmm. Which ends up, ended up being the one I chose.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I said, here's where I think it's gonna be. Here's what it costs and here's like, do you, so, and then I, the very first one to say Yes was the WBO Builders out of Tremont. Okay. They're amazing. They believed in me and they loved the idea, the plan, and so they were the first ones. And then once I had one, people were like, okay, this is cool.
Like, okay,
Speaker: you wanna,
Speaker 2: because
Speaker: then you can go to the second place and be like, oh yeah, we have Wagon B builders on board. At what point in time did you, were you able to secure the location after how many sponsors
Speaker 2: it wasn't? That's a good question.
Speaker: Because I would imagine some uncertainty from potential sponsors might have resided in the idea that like, hey, she doesn't have a place yet.
Right. And that, that would be the next pin, [00:15:00] for a prospective sponsor to be like, oh, they've got the wagon box, they've got these people. Yeah. And she's got a place.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker: So at what point in time did you pick up the, were you able to score the building because you're over here by the field shopping center?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yep. I
Speaker: signed the lease. How many units down are you from the theater?
Speaker 2: There's one in between us.
Speaker: Okay. So you're next to the theater?
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: Ish. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I signed the lease in September
Speaker: of, of
Speaker 2: 24.
Speaker: Of 24. So from January to September or end of the year, somewhere around the end of the year,
Speaker 2: eptember, I was gathering sponsors and
Speaker: Okay.
Yeah. How many sponsors do you think you had roughly by the time you were signing a lease and you're like, Hey, we've got a place five. How many of you have now total?
Speaker 2: I think we are up to. 44.
Speaker: You have 44 identities sponsoring.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker: The Play Cafe just
Speaker 2: got one this morning actually. Yeah.
Speaker: And they're okay.
So for now, we're gonna jump forward. Yeah. I want to give people the visual who are tuning into the [00:16:00] podcast and they're like, oh wait, what are they even talking about? Because maybe they don't have, they don't have small kids, they haven't been in there. So let's go ahead and snap forward and maybe we'll come back to some of these other kinds of like the birth of the business kinds of questions.
But Sam, a grandparent, Sam coming into Morton and picking up my grandkids and I want something to do for the day. Hey, there's the Play cafe. I heard this on a podcast. Mm-hmm. What are they gonna see when they walk in the door?
Speaker 2: So you walk in and we have the checking counter. You sign a waiver, fill out kiddos information and then it's $15 per child.
Okay. Grownups are free. And we do have membership options and stuff as well.
Speaker: $15 for how long?
Speaker 2: It's unlimited.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, for now I think about, I'm thinking about going to two hour time slots.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: Especially for the winter break and spring break times where it gets pretty busy in there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: And then it's kind of have a gated area where we have tables for snacks. We sell snacks, and then we have the gourmet coffee bar. And then you walk through the gate. And then there's just a town we, you just walk around, like the street. And then there's all the [00:17:00] playhouses in the middle. We have the fire truck and the train that makes it's water vapor.
It's a humidifier. Yeah. My husband did that. It's a train that makes the sounds and the steam.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then mail truck. We have a soray trolley ice cream trolley. Oh man. Grocery store. Oh man. Gym. A little gym where the kids have a little treadmill they run on and a little weight bench.
So cute. And we have more community bank where there's gold bars in the safe and, and, and fake money they can play with. Uh, Springfield Clinic is a little doctor's office
Speaker: and they've got like the stethoscope and
Speaker 2: they got all the things, all the
Speaker: doctor tools,
Speaker 2: babies, they can pretend to check up a check up on what we actually have the actual doctor coats Dr.
Lundy and Dr. Beatie gave me their actual jackets 'cause they didn't wear 'em. So that they're really cute. They're like little,
Speaker: yeah. Little adults. Mm-hmm. Little doctors running around.
Speaker 2: Then we have a, like a, it's called Level de Farms. They, he's a cattle farmer that we did a little burger grill. So you can pretend to cook your burgers and steaks.
The newest one. Do you want me to go through all these?
Speaker: I, I, I do. I want, I mean, I know that there's no probably [00:18:00] ability to be able to hit every single sponsor, but I
Speaker 2: about Yeah. Yeah. At least the play house ones.
Speaker: Yeah. Hit the big ones.
Speaker 2: So then our newest one is a law office. It's really cute. It's Parker and Parker.
They're out of Peoria.
Speaker: Yeah,
Speaker 2: they, it's half law office. Half courtroom. So we have, like, I, we built a judge's,
Speaker: a little judge's bench.
Speaker 2: It is adorable. No, they have a gavel and the gown and then. The desk, the office side has a computer and a phone and little suit jackets they can put on. Yeah. And I'm working on this right now.
It's the newest one, so it's not a hundred percent done yet, but we have book cases where they're gonna be, you can open the books and have clues to solve. There'll be little interactive cases to solve
Speaker: what?
Speaker 2: My kids are really into this one, so.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: Especially
Speaker: my
Speaker 2: 8-year-old. Yeah.
Speaker: A little bit ago you were talking about, there was a company who you did some research on and you said that they could build it for some ridiculous, who's doing all the, 'cause you didn't go that route.
Speaker 2: Didn't go that route. It was
Speaker: your DIY right? Really
Speaker 2: expensive. Yeah. So,
Speaker: so what's going on? Who's doing it?
Speaker 2: A friend of mine that I've known since kindergarten, he is, he can just build anything.
Speaker: What
Speaker 2: he, yeah. You can just say, here's a picture of the Sucraid trolley [00:19:00] and he builds it.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: And he built the Jeep from Sam Lehman and he all the playhouses.
And then I painted my mother-in-law, and I and my mom, we painted every surface in that place. So it's a team
Speaker: effort.
Speaker 2: Every piece, Ofri and every line it was, oh man, it was months and months of painting.
Speaker: I think I cut you off a little bit. You were going through some of the sponsors. You said the law office was the last one that you talked about.
Continue on down the line a little bit for, I don't know how long, but
Speaker 2: No, I'm looking at down the other street here. When we got home, it's a home suite home, we call it. It's sponsored by Trisha Ty. She's the real estate agent.
Speaker: Yeah, real estate.
Speaker 2: She's amazing. So the kids love that one. They have a little couch and a kitchen and a, a vacuum and they just a little baby bassinet thing and kids love that one.
So it's like their
Speaker: home.
Speaker 2: Their home it's home. Sweet home. And then next to that is a little lawn care area. They can pretend to mow the grass. It's really cute. And they have like little hedge trimmers and
Speaker: I can't take it all. It's
Speaker 2: so cute.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker 2: And that sponsored by a easier ground management. It's at a, he's at a peak and they're great too.
Okay. Um, the next, that is Sohi Boutique. She, that one is a favorite. [00:20:00] It's all,
she's a boutique Oh,
Speaker: boutique store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She owns a, it's, they have one in Morton in Peoria Heights.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And she, Sarah, OSHA is her name. She is like my role model. She is like the entrepreneur.
The best I've ever, you know? Yeah. She's wedding planning. She does all the events that are just topnotch.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: But she, well, so Sheik Boutique, the kids have little bath bomb bars and then they pretend to buy candles and little stuffies and they check out on the counter.
And hers is And is there a little
Speaker: cash register?
Speaker 2: There is, yeah. Hers is really cute. 'cause she, she brought one and you're
Speaker: thinking of it all.
Speaker 2: Well, she did that one. She is very. Br. She knows her brand and
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: She got, she has her own logo in there that she framed and it's just really cute.
Speaker: Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very girly and cute and my kids love it.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. Keep on going.
Speaker 2: So, okay. From there you've got
Speaker: more, I know you do.
Speaker 2: So Chic next to, so Chic is a vintage optical.
Speaker: I can see you going through it in
Speaker 2: your
Speaker: head.
Speaker 2: I
Speaker: do. I'm, it's all visual In the back, back of your mind.
Speaker 2: So a vintage optical. They're an eye doc. Ophthalmologist in town.
They're great too. Dr. Vettings, a friend of mine, is
Speaker: there one of those little boards on the wall that, that says like that? [00:21:00] Can you read these letters?
Speaker 2: It's a Snellen chart. It's called the Snellen chart.
Speaker: Oh, there's a name for that thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah. You wanna stand 20 feet away? Cover your eye.
Speaker: Okay. Um, Snellen.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. And there's actually a piece of tape on the ground that says 20 feet here, stand here to get your checkup. Little, maybe you guys
Speaker: are going through all the, all the motions.
Speaker 2: It's so fun to make tiny things.
Speaker: It's so fun to make tiny things.
Speaker 2: So then they have a little computer desk and they have little glasses they can pretend to try on.
And the kids love the glasses, although they are the most replaced thing that I ever have to replace. 'cause they're always breaking. They're breaking or just disappear. I don't know where they go.
Speaker: They just disappear. They're going home.
Speaker 2: Yeah. After that is a brook and co salon. So that has, okay. They have this actual stylist chair and actual dryer, the old fashioned dryer chair thing.
A little mannequin head. They can pretend to braid their hair and
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker 2: you know, all the, all the tools. And then next to Brook and Co is a pizza place. It's called P Pete, the original P they're outta Bloomington.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: So that the pizza oven and then the pizza.
Speaker: And then next to that,
Speaker 2: so then agape Counseling.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: Is on our, like we have a castle wall with dress up and up, a little [00:22:00] puppet show, uh, next to the pizza place so that we have Agape and then Captivation dance. They're all right next to you here. They're all right here. Yeah. Got neighbors. And then Garber Heating and Air sponsored our party room. We got a and J Electric, we have this giant light bright board that kids can put the pigs in light rights.
Like I'm from, I'm an eighties kid, so
Speaker: Yeah. No, I remember the light. Right.
Speaker 2: Love
Speaker: it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then Beam's Market is in Remont. It's a little grocery store.
Speaker: I love beam's.
Speaker 2: We have a little barn egg drop area with the little farm area.
Speaker: You mentioned a party room.
Speaker 2: Party room, yeah.
Speaker: Let's talk about some of the things that like, you mentioned in my hypothetical grandparents coming in $15.
For the kids to go run and play and the grandparents and something also, you mentioned earlier, like it's all on one plane. It's not like you're going up and down stairs. Like there's different quarters of the building, like the
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: Love the playhouse. But it's unlike the playhouse in that way. Yeah. You can sit in here.
Um, the Children Children's Discovery Museum. It's, it's like that. It's like that, but it's not because you can literally just post up in a spot and be like,
Speaker 2: yep. You can see your kid
Speaker: without too much concern. Exactly. Of your kid running off to [00:23:00] another level or another floor.
There's into a corridor.
Yep.
Speaker 2: There's one entry. And they can't get out. You're
Speaker: okay
Speaker 2: and you can see them wherever you're at.
Speaker: So other than being able to come in and for $15, the kids can go play. You mentioned a party room, we talking birthday parties and things like that? Yes.
Speaker 2: Yep. We do
Speaker: talk about that.
Speaker 2: We birthday parties, kids love the birthday parties. They have, we have the private party room with tables and chairs and decorations and
Speaker: Okay. How do parents get to more information about that? Like how do you reserve a private party? Do they just call up or what
Speaker 2: They call me or, it's on the website.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: The information is on the website. I'm. Working on online booking for those.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: As we like at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's more convenient for booking and tracking and, and what add-ons they wanted. We do, we could do balloons, we do face painting, add-ons, stuff like that. Birthday parties. So we have it where you could have it while we're open to the public and still have your private party room.
Or you can rent the whole, you can have the whole space, the whole play cafe is yours. So
Speaker: it's like semi-private.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker: And completely private.
Speaker 2: Private, yep.
Speaker: But the party room though, is semi-private in the way that it has a door.
Speaker 2: Door. Yeah. There's
Speaker: a few windows that you can kind of, so you could have.
[00:24:00] Them and their semi-private party in the back with the door shut and still have the play. Plays the cafe still open and running.
Speaker 2: Yep. And they just come out and play when they're done with their cake and ice cream.
Speaker: Very cool. Yeah. Mingling amongst the other kids. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Besides the party room, what else?
Speaker 2: Uh, we do field trips. We love field trips. They're a lot of fun.
Speaker: Okay. So, so we're talking like local, elementary and I, I guess anywhere in the area, right?
Speaker 2: Anywhere, yeah. If they want to. What
Speaker: schools have you had come?
Speaker 2: We've had blessed Sacrament came. Okay. We've had Fremont came.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: We had Devin last week.
We had a preschool from Washington.
Speaker: Oh man, they're showing up on buses and they're just, just coming and playing all day.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: Or part of the day, hitting lunch and then going back to school.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or we have it where we have the party room available too, if they wanna have a sack lunch. Okay. In the party room.
They could stay Okay. They can come, you know, it's about two hours-ish for, for a field trip.
Speaker: Okay. I think you're beginning to tell me something about some sort of a passport to play. What was that? Is that, was that, is that this,
Speaker 2: that is, so we have basic field trips where you can just come and play, and then I just launched this [00:25:00] new curriculum based field trip, which is pretty fun.
So it's like last week we had second and third graders from Blessed Sacrament. Okay. Come for their field trip. But two weeks prior to that, I make a, I have a curriculum that's all age appropriate. And then who,
Speaker: who made that?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker: You did? Yeah. It
Speaker 2: was a little help but
Speaker: a little bit of help.
Okay. Everybody's got tools.
.
Speaker: So you bring this curriculum to Blessed Sacrament? Yep. Second grade, third grade, yep. Two weeks prior to their field trip day.
Speaker 2: And we can do it up, you know, we can do it a week, like one day a week for a couple weeks. Okay. But this one we just did the one time I came in and I brought, I did this one, I did for second third graders.
We had a budget of $25 and they had to figure out what they could, how they could feed themselves with that $25. And I brought little groceries and tried to explain, tried to explain the Play Cafe concept. They were, it's hard to explain it really to,
Speaker 4: yeah.
Speaker 2: To eight year olds. Yeah. But they were really excited to learn more about it when they actually came.
But then we did, like, I taught 'em how to take their pulses and measure like when you jump up and down, how your pulse increases and then when,
so
Speaker: [00:26:00] your curriculum has little modules of all of the little tiny home town things that you have inside of the Play Street Cafe.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. It will. Right.
That's why I only started with a couple
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: Concepts. 'cause I wasn't, it's new and I'm
Speaker: still rolling it out. We're
Speaker 2: still rolling it out. But then when they came for their field. We had different stations where they implemented the skills we learned in the classroom
Speaker: from the class visit two weeks prior.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I can I can also just send that to the teacher to do that with them. Or I can come or send staff
Speaker: Right.
Speaker 2: To do that for them.
Speaker: Let's talk about staff. Staff. That's a good transition. How many people you got on your team?
Speaker 2: Oh, well
Speaker: not including the guy who does the DIY stuff. Yeah. But I'm talking about the people who are there on the daily.
Speaker 2: Yep. I started with nobody, just me and my mom and my mother-in-law. Free help.
Speaker: Yeah. There you go.
Speaker 2: You know how just getting launched
Speaker: and you don't gotta pay taxes for that.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Well,
Speaker: yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then my pastor's daughter from church, she was my very first employee, Noel. She's amazing. She was my first one to jump on and help me.
And during spring break of the first year,
Speaker 3: yeah.
Speaker 2: She saved my life. 'cause we didn't have coffee yet at that point. It was just [00:27:00] play and, you know, chaos and trying to figure out how to keep the toys where they belong and just
working out the kinks.
And then my son, who's 17 he helped me, he, you know, he works part-time and then I had some high schoolers. Right now I have five, five part-timers, but if they're in school, they only help me on like summer, winter break or summer break.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I have two solid girls that help me three or four days a week.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. And what are their jobs and responsibilities? Receptionists, somebody checking in, people signing the waivers. So it's kind General cleaning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just it's, everybody does the same thing. I do the same thing as the, like we do toilets and I
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Vacuum just as they, as they do, which is
Speaker: okay.
Speaker 2: We work together.
Speaker: You're the CEO and the janitor?
Speaker 2: I am everything.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2: Um, and the social media manager. All of it.
Speaker: Yeah. How hard is that?
Speaker 2: It's really hard. Social media is, I never was. All I used to do was maybe check Facebook, but now I'm trying to learn all of the things.
But actually these young girls, these young kids, they're great at it. So I'm like, yeah, as part of your daily [00:28:00] Yeah. Can you make me a TikTok? And they do. They're great. They
Speaker: love it.
Speaker 2: They love it,
Speaker: okay.
Speaker 2: But anyways so they know, they check in people, they make coffee, they clean vacuum.
Everybody kind of does all the same stuff
Speaker: and that, that's how you deal with the mess.
Speaker 2: We try, we try. Yeah. We try,
Speaker: try to keep up with it. 'Cause kids are just generally messy. They're not gonna put things away.
Speaker 2: It depends. It depends on the kid. When we just launched this new thing we have a mascot now.
Her name is Millie the monkey. Aw. And she, we have a couple signs around and it, and it's kids help pick up before they leave. They can come pick out a prize from the prize, but,
Speaker: oh, this is an accountability kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, parents love to see their kids rewarded for good behavior and Yeah.
It's really been popular. And so it's actually the Morton soccer field does that, so I stole their idea, but
Speaker: Okay. It
Speaker 2: works.
Speaker: They don't have million. The monkey though, do they?
Speaker 2: No, but they reward kids for helping pick up.
Speaker: Okay. Well they're not the first ones to do that. Right? True. I
Speaker 2: just,
Speaker: yeah, but you saw that idea and you're like, Hey, great idea.
Because I'd imagine at some point in time you're lamenting or your staff is lamenting to you like, oh man, we're just, it's, I'm constantly chasing spills and I'm constantly doing this, and you're like, what can we do? And then the [00:29:00] idea of Millie Millie the monkey. Millie
Speaker 2: the monkey. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, that reminds me of Millie Vanilli.
You don't remember that? Mm-hmm. Group. Mm-hmm. And they, they sang in the eighties and nineties. Blame it on the rain.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Sorry. Okay. She's looking at me. Nope. Sorry. Ain't gonna happen. Okay. You mentioned coffee. What, what For the adults, the kids are running around and with engaged in all this play, there's gotta be something for the adults to do other than talk to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we have a gourmet coffee bar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: We have hot lattes, cold lattes, pretty much anything you want we can make. And we,
Speaker: you have a staffer running that or do they kind of run it themselves?
Speaker 2: They do everything. Like if we have two people, we just kind of, whoever's there makes a coffee.
Speaker: Got
Speaker 2: it. Yep.
We partner with CXT outta Peoria.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: They're amazing. Their beans are so good. They're great.
Speaker: Okay. Uh, what else about for adults? There, I'm sure that there's gotta be a sit down area. Some of these adults aren't gonna be standing around, walking around the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have a lot of comfy chairs sitting throughout. Some of 'em, like by each station,
Speaker: they're just scattered throughout the Yeah.
Scatter town. Scatter,
Speaker 2: yeah. Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: A couple benches. And then there's some, the snacky [00:30:00] area where we keep kids snacks. There's some higher tables for grownups. Oh, yep.
Speaker: Here's a chance to talk about the kids snacks. At some point in time the kids are gonna be so engaged that they're gonna start to crash and they're like, oh, they need something.
Speaker 2: They love their snacks.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. I love my snacks too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have healthy snacks. We're peanut free, so it's just, you know, the pirates booty and the popcorns and
Speaker: yeah.
Speaker 2: All the kid favorite snacks.
Speaker: Okay. You said peanut free. That remind, that reminds me about rules. Yes. We should probably talk about some rules.
Obviously people can't bring in peanuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're signing a waiver, but maybe they're not reading at all. What are the rules?
Speaker 2: Rules? We we say no shoes, so socks only. Okay. So little babies who are, crawling around, aren't getting outside germs. So no outside food or drinks. Yeah.
Speaker: That's a must
Speaker 2: skip the Starbucks line. We already have it here.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, and like we were have, we had somebody bring in a whole bowl of spaghetti, so it was, I I had to pivot and put the signs up on the doors. Say sorry. No outside food or drink.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. And then we say no running or climbing just 'cause there are little kids and sometimes bigger kids that if they run they might trip over a little child. [00:31:00]
Speaker: We'll, we'll pause here for a second. What age groups are we, we're, you said little kids, babies crawling around. When you say bigger kids, how big were we getting?
Speaker 2: We were pretty much zero to 12. Okay. 13. But, but there are, like, in the mornings we have a lot of toddler ti toddlers and even six month old babies', parents are bringing to, to take pictures and they love it. Okay. But we've had some bigger kids too, and had still have a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yeah. That's a big range.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Okay. Back to the changes that, that you've made since you've opened up. At some point in time you were allowing food in, somebody brought in a bunch of spaghetti and you're like, Hey, we have to pivot. We can't do that. What are some changes you made?
Speaker 2: So I did open, when I opened it was and my initial design did have a whole cafe, cafe seating with tables and chairs.
Lots. I had four or five, probably large tables and chairs. But it kind, I needed the room 'cause we were expanding and we have, we've added two new playhouses. Since I've opened, we've added the Morton Vet, Morton Animal Hospital.
Speaker: Cute.
Speaker 2: Dr. Winston. She, we, that was a new, newer ad. And then the Parker and Parker, the law office is a new ad.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I, I had to rearrange and [00:32:00] remodel and so I had to take those days.
Speaker: Do you have to do that every time you get a new sponsor?
Speaker 2: Not really, but Okay. I pretty, I pretty much rearrange if you ask people that come often. Every time they come, there's something different. Okay. I rearrange or I move something pretty much every week
Speaker: that keeps you really busy.
Speaker 2: I just don't like it the same and I'm, yeah, just trying to make it perfect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I, I still have room to add more too. I wanna, so I do have more room for a little bit smaller playhouses on this other street, so. Oh, so we have
Speaker: a little side street.
Speaker 2: A little side street. Yeah. It's gonna be cute if they get some more.
Businesses on board.
Speaker: You're looking for more sponsors for that?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: How many spots are you looking for?
Speaker 2: How many spots? It depends
Speaker: yeah.
Speaker 2: If we a mechanic shop would be really fun.
Speaker: Ooh, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2: A dental, we don't have dentist. Other school.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: A little daycare. Oh, school.
Speaker: Thats a good idea. You've got all these good ideas. A
Speaker 2: daycare. I got a lot of idea Bookstore, toy store. I mean, we can add anything that a town would have.
Speaker: It could anything. Right? Oh, awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: A Jimmy John's.
Speaker 2: Oh, I would love a Jimmy John's Chick-fil-A.
Speaker: Yeah. Just a little sandwich or a restaurant kind of style thing.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Um, di you have the pizza? A diner? Yep. Yeah. Give [00:33:00] 'em little like serving trays.
Speaker 2: Really cute.
Speaker: Oh, that would be cute. Okay. What's the most popular at the moment?
Speaker 2: Oh man. Honestly, I think the law office, 'cause it's so brand new.
Speaker: Okay,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker: do you have a lot of regulars?
Speaker 2: We have a lot of regulars. We have people who come every day.
That's a good sign day every other day, member. That's why memberships, if you come often, the memberships make more sense.
Speaker: Okay. I don't think we, we've talked a little bit, and you just told me the one price point was $15.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: Well, tell me about memberships.
Speaker 2: We have memberships where if you come three times in, in a month, it's cheaper to get a membership.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: Or four times? Three or four
Speaker: times.
Speaker 2: Three or four times a month. It depends on how many kids you have. If you have two kids
Speaker: Right.
Speaker 2: It's a, it's, yeah.
Speaker: Right, right. Yeah. What's the cost of the membership?
Speaker 2: So one kid is, think it's 45, 55 and 65. So memberships are 45 for one kid, 55 for two kids, 65. And it goes up $10 the more kids you have a month. Okay. Then you can come in, you can come every day Unlimit.
Speaker: Right, right. For as long as you, for as long as they want to stay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Usually it's about an hour and a half to two hours. Right. [00:34:00] People usually stay
Speaker: Right.
Speaker 2: Or sometimes longer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker 2: And then we have a via a year membership, which we offer a deal. You get a couple months free if you buy the year in full, so.
Speaker: Okay. It's neat that people have options. Yeah.
I mean, they can come in and try it and be like, oh this is an option. And then if it's proven to themselves, you know, right. And to their kids that this is really, really fun, then they can spring for the membership.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually we have punch passes that are really popular as well that I offer on special occasions.
We did one at Christmas and then it makes it, it's five for 50 or 10 for a hundred. So you,
Speaker: okay. These could be like gift giving kind things,
Speaker 2: right? They, it was, Christmas was a really big
Speaker: Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker 2: But lemme repeat that. 'cause So it's five for 60 or 10 for one 20 for batch passes, which just, and you
Speaker: still have those now or?
No,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do an Easter deal. So it's, it's,
Speaker: oh,
Speaker 2: throughout the year we do a couple sales.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. Alright.
Speaker 2: They're good. Yeah. Good. Easter ba they were really popular at Christmas too.
Speaker: So your overall thoughts of being an, you're an entrepreneur now, like you, you've, how long have you been inside of this space?
Two years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, about
Speaker: 3, 3, 3 years of, of planning
Speaker 2: years. Two years.
Speaker: Two years. [00:35:00]
Speaker 2: Yep. January of 20.
Speaker: How's it, how's it?
Speaker 2: January of 24.
Speaker: What's it doing to you?
Speaker 2: No. Three years.
Speaker: Do you find yourself working just incredible hours or,
Speaker 2: yeah. I, it doesn't, I don't really shut it off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At all. And I'm there all day, usually go get my kids off the bus.
We come back and like last night I was there painting a desk for the new law office and the kids helped me and
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But we're also remodel or rebuilding it. Yeah.
Speaker: How does it change, though, for you, like the concept of work? You've worked the office job, the nine to five job you've done nursing, you've worked in offices before.
The word work now has changed for you. That's a existential kinda shift, you say to your husband like, Hey, I gotta go work. Nobody's paying you the way that somebody used to pay you be in the past. How is it different now?
Speaker 2: You know, it's fun. Yeah. That's funny because I never thought about that.
It's, it's not really work. I love every, I love doing it. It's just fun and my kids are doing it with me. It's just our family. It's just our life now. I just,
Speaker: oh man. Your kids are gonna grow up.
Speaker 2: They're gonna
Speaker: seeing this,
Speaker 2: they're gonna work there. They're gonna, they already have a [00:36:00] job and they're,
Speaker: yeah, they're working there now.
Speaker 2: They are working there. I'm not gonna lie. No, they do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They're the best cleaners. Oh good. They sat there a couple days ago and sorted
Speaker: cleaning has gotta be an important part of that job.
Speaker 2: Oh it is. You know, we try to, you
Speaker: gotta keep that place sanitary. Kids got sticky things coming outta their faces all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is important. No, we have the yuck bucket. So if the toy goes in a mouth, then they stick the toys in there and we do wipe down throughout the day many, many times.
Speaker: That's pretty smart. The yuck bucket.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
And
Speaker: they're just kind of hanging on the wall for parents to be able to grab something and be like, Nope.
Speaker 2: They're kind of on top of a couple vehicles. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. So they're just out and about.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: And they're labeled.
Speaker 2: And we do take, we try to, we sanitize
Speaker: everything,
Speaker 2: everything.
Speaker: Lots of gallons of sanitizer stuff coming in.
Speaker 2: Medical grade,
Speaker: medical grade stuff. Yeah. You know where to get the good stuff, right?
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker: So what are you doing going forward? You're in it for two years now. How's it, is it, you've just lay, you've just pinned down the law office, Parker and Parker, that's your most recent edition.
What's the [00:37:00] future hold?
Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to finish the streets and like get it where I don't wanna rearrange anymore. Yeah. So I want a couple more playhouses and I just kind, this
Speaker: is that side street that you were talking about?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. It's just so you have one row and then some of the vehicles where the vehicles are.
Okay. I have room for a few more like medium sized playhouses for stuff that I think is missing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which I could keep adding for. I probably will keep adding until it's absolutely full.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we
Speaker: what are the windows on the sponsorships? Like are they signing an agreement? I mean, you're building these things out for them.
What happens in three years when,
Speaker 2: yep. So
Speaker: they, I mean I assume it's, it, it individualized per sponsor. Some of 'em are sponsoring for one year, some of 'em are sponsoring for maybe two years. Is that how that works?
Speaker 2: So the playhouses are work for two years and then after that it's just. Like a
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maintenance,
Speaker: a renewal basis. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: So if they don't wanna keep doing it. They don't have to, but,
Speaker: all right. I guess I asked that question for a prospective business here in Morton. Mm-hmm. And they hear the episode and they're like, oh, that's cute. I've got grandkids. Yeah. Or, you know, [00:38:00] we've got our kids and Hey honey, what do you think about sponsoring?
And maybe it's a mechanics shop. Can they sponsor for one year? Can they sponsor for two years? Or how's that work? Is it all just a worth a conversation?
Speaker 2: It's kind worth a conversation. Like it depends how much the build out would take and
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, and what goes into that?
Speaker: There's lots of factors in involved, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um,
Speaker: the size of it. Yeah, exactly. How long it's gonna stay,
Yeah. I imagine that every single conversation is different.
Speaker 2: They are,
Speaker: yeah. They're all different. Right. So where are you going from here though?
Speaker 2: Grow our party bookings and our field trips are a lot of fun. And just keep getting the word out there. 'cause there's still people who come and they're like, oh, I just heard about you yesterday. Yeah. I'm like, I, you know, I try hard on social media. I know, but it's so hard to reach everybody.
Speaker: Our south end of the town is not as vibrant and, and busy traffic wise as like the north end of town, so it's,
we're coming up on, on Easter. Do you have any kind of sponsorship, promotional things that are, you mentioned something about in Easter?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I [00:39:00] don't have the date yet, but we'll probably do a punch pass sale
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: For your Easter baskets. And then we do have a glow party on March 29th. It's sponsored by Vintage Optical. So some of my sponsors like say cute, Hey, can we do this? You know. Yeah. Again, and do an event. So, you know, we advertise for each other, even for these cool events. We're gonna have a live dj, a Morton guy.
He's actually Aero Glow,
Speaker: uh, is it Joe?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe.
Speaker: Joe Greenwood.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's gonna come and the whole place is gonna be lit up. And, hi Joe Dark. Hi Joe.
Speaker: Joe's really good at what he does.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun.
Speaker: He's a fun guy.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. And then actually the day before that, we have an indoor Easter egg hunt.
Our second annual, our first, second annual anything. And it's really exciting to say second annual because Yeah, that's the first thing that we've repeated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In our first year. That was we celebr. So
Speaker: this is your first time having a second annual event. And it's Easter egg hunting inside.
Speaker 2: Yep. And we're having Easter Bunny and then we have little crafts and new.
It's very,
Speaker: is this a one day event?
Speaker 2: It's, yeah. One day event, but we have different time slots per age.
Speaker: Do they have to sign up for that?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have it's [00:40:00] on Facebook event or, and I'll put it on my website too.
Speaker: Okay. Uh, drop the website real quick.
Speaker 2: Main streete play cafe fa morton.com.
Speaker: Main street play cafe morton.com.
All one word.
Speaker 2: All written out. All one word.
Speaker: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: And so last year we did it and it was, it's all organized. Like, 'cause you go in and,
Speaker: what was that date, did you say? March 29th.
Speaker 2: March 28th. The egg hunt. And the 29th is the glow party. Oh, man. Right before spring break. So it was a Sunday night for the glow party, but nobody has to get up the next day.
Speaker: You're keeping those kids busy.
Speaker 2: I'm trying. I mean,
Speaker: yeah. You're keeping
Speaker 2: myself busy too.
Speaker: What's your husband think about it all?
Speaker 2: Oh he's good.
Speaker: He's all in. He's all helpful and supportive of it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. He's been great.
Speaker: Does he have to build any of this stuff or just your friend you said, who does the DIY
Speaker 2: He takes responsibility for that train.
Speaker: Oops. Who he takes the responsibility for that train
Speaker 2: for. We have this train, the train that we have. But
Speaker: your husband, he did the train, right?
Speaker 2: Well, I bought it from a library up in Naperville, and then he as an engineer, took it to work. Retro
Speaker: did it.
Speaker 2: He made it, he did the sound and programmed all that and then put the humidifier in it and made the steam shoot up.
And there's a fan in [00:41:00] there so it doesn't get moldy. It's, that was his baby, so Oh,
Speaker: okay.
Speaker 2: He did that and he did a couple other things, but he's, when I was there painting till midnight, he was with the kids.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, and he's busy too with,
Speaker: for enter, for every entrepreneur who's up late. There's a spouse at home, you know, kinda holding things down at home.
So
Speaker 2: the kids, even though kids were with me a lot too, so.
Speaker: Awesome. Mallory, any other last comments that you want to give out to either, shout out to your staff or thanks to the customers who have been coming forever and ever? Yeah. Hellos to future, people coming in. Here's your chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've had so much support from the community and I've made some really good friends just from people coming to play and my kids have made some best friends and it's just so fun to see them grow. Like when we first opened in 2025, some of these kiddos are now running around and when they were just babies and it's so fun to see them.
Yeah. To see them grow up and mature and just see their eyes light up when they get to come play and just have a town their size and then all the sponsors. Thank you so much. I could not have done it without your support and believing in me. [00:42:00]
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, and trusting me,
Speaker: right.
Speaker 2: To make something great for our community.
Speaker: It's so fantastic. If you haven't had a chance to go in there and take a look. And even if you don't have kids of that age, it is just an adorable place to come in for a cup of coffee and just kinda sit down and just watch this. This little tiny town of little, little tiny people running around with stethoscopes and, and, and so
Speaker 2: fun
Speaker: and golden bars from the bank.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the favorite thing is they like to steal the money from the bank. Yeah. It's like 8-year-old. Six to 8-year-old boys. That's always no matter who it is, they,
Speaker: yeah.
Speaker 2: And now we have a law office. So now they're like crime and punishment.
Speaker: You need a jail.
Speaker 2: That's what they said. I thought about a jail when I first designed this.
Yeah. But I'm like, oh, there's gonna be some kid crying and locking jail. 'cause he got thrown in
Speaker: jail.
Speaker 2: That's why he scrapped it. But
Speaker: that reminds me of, uh, back to the future there, his uncle ends up becoming, a criminal and he is in jail forever. When he goes to the past, he ends up seeing his uncle as a little baby and he's in the crib and he's holding onto to the bars of the jail and he's like, you need to get used to that uncle.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that part.
Speaker: [00:43:00] Yeah.
Uh, last finishing thoughts and comments
Speaker 2: yeah. So all the sponsors, thank you. I said that. Mm-hmm. And my husband and my family.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We all the countless hours that my mother-in-law and my mom and I were up on scaffolding, painting that place and all the hard work and my father-in-law and my dad and all the family support. My sister, we were there like middle of the night sorting toys and putting dots on everything.
Oh, that's another thing I could talk about real quick is like, people are always like, where do you, how do you know where everything goes? Everything's color coded, so you know, like what house it goes in. That doesn't
matter.
Speaker: How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Just a dot on the bottom of my toilet. Oh. Like every, everything for the burger joint has an orange dot.
So, but yeah.
Speaker: That's so thoughtful. I would've never
Speaker 2: thought I, that
Speaker: is
Speaker 2: my sister. She's the organizer.
Speaker: Oh, okay. Big props to the sister then.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker 2: And my husband, thank you for supporting me and believing in my dream.
Speaker: Awesome. Awesome. . .
And
Speaker 2: my kids were,
Speaker: Aw, the kiddos
Speaker 2: like, they're
Speaker: there.
They're, they're the spark of it
Speaker 2: all. They are. They are. They were the, idea behind it. They were, I built it for them. [00:44:00] And the
Speaker: version of yourself five years ago would've never thought,
Speaker 2: no,
Speaker: that you'd be doing this.
Speaker 2: Never.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker 2: It was a risky thing. Like I, you know,
Speaker: it's absolutely risky.
Speaker 2: Scary, scary. I had to learn it. I had to learn all the ask, you know, how to be a business owner along the way. And I'm still learning every day. There's things that,
Speaker: yeah,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker: for sure
Speaker 2: it's fun.
Speaker: Well, Mallory Swanson, thank you for coming in. Tell everybody one more time the address, the website anything else that you wanted to conclude
Speaker 2: with.
So yeah main Street Play Cafe. We're at 2 0 5 9 South Main Street in Morton by the movie theater.
Speaker: Yeah,
Speaker 2: We are open on weekdays.
9:00 AM to three. Saturdays nine 30 to four 30, and Sundays 11 to three. We have private parties after that. So we do have availability for private parties after our hours after we're closed, but
Speaker: okay,
Speaker 2: and we'll probably have some summer hours that'll be different. So check the website, main Street play cafe morton.com for updated hours and information and events are all on Facebook, Instagram, and we do no [00:45:00] TikTok.
Now
Speaker: what?
Speaker 2: I have
Speaker: When, when do the summer hours start? You don't know. Probably may. Probably
Speaker 2: when schools, when
Speaker: schools up. May.
Speaker 2: Probably June 1st.
Speaker: June 1st. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. Or just
Speaker 2: don't say that.
Speaker: We just made the executive decision right here, right now. June 1st is when summer schedule starts.
Speaker 2: Yep. And we have lots of different events, so follow along on the socials. 'cause that's where we all the events we have, we actually have a, um, sorry, I can plug this in somewhere.
Speaker: It's okay. Plug it.
Speaker 2: A kids' painting party that Canvas connections is coming to do like the guided painting, and that's on during spring break on April 2nd.
And that you can find that on Facebook too.
Speaker: Okay. We talked for a brief minute about some sort of a sponsorship perhaps a deal for the listeners.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. So if you come to play and you listen to this podcast, just mention the word muse for half off play.
Speaker: Awesome. Half off play. That sounds like a good deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Come on in.
Speaker: All right. Thank you, Mallory.
Speaker: Hey, this is Ben. Thanks for listening to this episode of Morton Muon News. I'm excited to share more stories with you, but I need your help to keep the content growing and [00:46:00] engaging. If you know someone in our community with an interesting story to tell, or who's making a difference, we'd love to hear from you.
Maybe it's a local business owner, maybe a community volunteer, or even a neighbor with a unique hobby. Send us their names and a little bit about why you think they'd be great for the show. You can find us by searching Morton Muse and News on Facebook, or by emailing me at B van D twelve@gmail.com, B-V-A-N-D-E one two additional.
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Together, let's continue to celebrate the people and the stories that make Morton special. Until next time, keep making Morton matter.
