About The Family Room Cafe

Introduction

A unique concept in coffee shops / cafes, the Family Room is a home from home, where children are not only welcome, they are encouraged!

The Family Room has commenced as an online presence only, providing resources, articles, videos and information to families via its website at http://www.familyroomcafe.org

The next step for us is to open a “real world” café in a busy area of Marietta, such as the junction between Roswell Rd and Johnson Ferry Rd or the East Lake Shopping Center on Roswell Rd (Market Research is currently being carried out to determine the optimum location). If successful, it would become a Franchise across the country.

Our Vision

Facilities

Menu

Clientele

Function Room

Things we need

Our Vision

In every Family Room coffee house, the décor is homely and comfortable, with armchairs and sofas (Tables and counters have rounded edges to prevent children bumping into them and having accidents). Rather than coffee tables (too low, easily accessible by children) higher resting places for coffees and food are available (various). On the walls are photos of local children (some with their families)*. Safe high chairs and situp/booster chairs are available in abundance. The floor carpet are highly washable to ensure that spillages and spitup / accidents are easily cleaned. The carpet has pictures of teddy bears / ABC / brightly colored simple pictures etc. as you might see in a child’s nursery or playroom.

Facilities

Everything is as child friendly / baby friendly as possible. There is a changing room for diaper changes, separate to the bathrooms, fully stocked with wipes, disposable changing mats and diaper cream.

There are a number of pens around the café:

Blanket movers pen contains baby toys

Creepers pen contains toys suited to babies who have started to move / crawl / walk

Tumblers pen is a large area containing brightly colored obstacles for young children to climb over and under.

There are play tables with coloring books, crayons, playdoh etc. as well as video games and board games for older children.

There is a large flat screen tv visible to most of the café, always showing child safe TV (sometimes including educational videos such as Sesame Street, sometimes including videos that teach moms/parents about parenting etc.). At 6pm each night, a child safe movie (Disney type) is shown.

Menu

The café is mainly a coffee house, offering coffee choices (including decaf), and light snacks. The café will probably also offer healthy smoothies and fruit juices, healthy pizzas, and healthy salads. (Market Research is still being carried out to determine exactly which to offer). A nutritionist advises us on what to offer, and we advertise the nutritionist’s services in return.

It also offers formula cans (moms only need to bring empty bottles), children’s fruit juices, finger foods, the ability to buy single diapers, the ability to buy diaper wipes in small packs, etc. for convenience to those caring for young children.

Clientele

During the day, clientele consist mainly of moms with their young children/babies, moms clubs and playgroups (Market Research suggests that in Marietta, many moms are craving a facility offering services that this café offers).

During the evenings, clientele consist of:

whole families just wanting to get out of the house and spend time together

moms night out clientele

Function Room

A function room is used to host:

Homeschooling groups / educational groups

Book clubs

Babysitting services

Arts/craft workshops for moms

On site massages (some are cheap, some are free!)

Bible study groups

Storytimes for young children

Homework classes for older children

Music classes for young children and babies

Exercise classes for young children and babies

“Expression” classes for young children and babies (singing and dancing)

self improvement/self help groups for adults

Nutrition classes for adults

Parenting classes

Psychology classes for adults(child psychology, post partum depression etc)

English as a Foreign Language for adults

Internet skills for adults and children

PC skills for adults and children

Business skills classes for adults

Meetup.com or meetin.org groups

Hosted children’s parties (at weekends)

Occasionally, at the weekends or on special occasions, dressed up characters (clowns, mickey mouse, barney etc) make surprise visits to the café and say hello to all the children.

*Local photographers and artists can display their works on our walls for free so that our clientele have something nice to look at, and we get commission if clients use our name when booking a session (clients get a discount too).

Things we need

To see a full list of the items we need in order to make a success of the Family Room Cafe, see our wish list.

To make a donation/pledge, click here.

To contact us go to the contact page