032026 ~ Work and Play at Recess Cafe - Thressa Nichols & Ashley Schafer

Ashley has two how old are they 11 and six and our guest Thresa you have how many two how old are they two and six oh my gosh

How you parents do it bless you both. I have no idea

Having kids though doesn't mean you have to sacrifice going out at recess cafe and downtown Ann Arbor

Young kids can play while parents work and socialize and it's the feature on our downtown with the main street area

Association the work and play at recess cafe as we welcome today back with us Ashley Schaefer executive director of the main street area

Association you are such a good mom. I follow you on social and you're so involved with all of your kids activities

And it's amazing and you know when you talk about working moms

I firmly believe moms who stay at home are working moms as well

But I think that added element of having a job as well is yeah

It's really hard. It can be tough. I have a great job though. I have a lot of flexibility

So I get to be more present in their lives. It's just such a blessing

Yeah, and I think that's really key is

Businesses have to be flexible in today's world

Well joining us today is Thresa Nichols. She is the founder of recess cafe. Born on a necessity, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh

This all come to be for you

Um, I think like a lot of good ideas they come from slightly grumpy women

I feel like it could be better and grumble about it and hope somebody will make it and then finally I was like

Screwed. I'll do it myself

And I think that's how it kind of began and you kept it downtown Ann Arbor, which is beautiful

Yeah, we went back and forth. Do we need you know? I got feedback. Oh, you're gonna have to be outside of downtown

You're gonna need a parking lot. You're gonna need um that element and

The longer I thought about it's like but I'm a downtown mom. I'm a cargo bike mom

I want to go to nice dinners. I want to be in the energy and there was nowhere like that

And now with all the build up in downtown and all of the people that

Uh city council hopes will come to downtown with the new builds and all of that

It really makes sense because a lot more families are going in there too

Yeah, I mean there is a somewhat common misconception like Ann Arbor's greatest shrinking population is family aged is

Is our family age group um, and so we see that it's it's a challenge

And so how can we make Ann Arbor more friendly while we have so much build up coming a lot of that downtown isn't geared towards families or people with children

Um, a lot of it doesn't you know allow you to own a lot of its rentals, which is great

We need more concentrated housing

But how can we still make downtown a place for families? Yeah, so families come downtown, right? Yeah

That's something actually you want because we have a lot of amenities downtown for people to visit we do

We do and a lot of our programming last year

We really tried to incorporate more family-friendly events to get families downtown so that they can bring their kids

And they don't have to get a babysitter and leave them at home

They should experience all these fun things too. So where is recess cafe located?

So recess cafe is on the corner of Ashland and Washington

So right across from sweet water, uh, you know kind of kitty corner from grizzly peak is it part of the downtown home and garden the old

Separate owners, but aesthetically, I think you would think it's the same building

I'm just gonna give you an idea of where you're where you are. Yeah, what's the concept here? What is this like?

Yeah, so uh, I really was looking for a way to sort of like be a whole person. I wanted

Good wine. I wanted good snacks. I also didn't want my kids to feel like a nuisance because I

Like my kids like I want them around I enjoy them um, but a lot of the spaces that are made for them first

Aren't necessarily also made for me first

So recess is a paid-of-play model, which helps us sort of justify having such a large part of the real estate dedicated to the kid friendly area and the family play area

But we also have sort of an event space that you can use off that we host community events and

You can come in get a cup of coffee while your kid plays you can come and get a glass of wine while your kid plays before your reservation

Opens up at money, you know um, and then we also have a lot of people who don't have kids at all the the vibes are really nice

It's a really welcoming space. We have big tables, which is hard to find in a coffee shop

And so we have a lot of people who just come and study college students and things like that

So what's the financial model for this business model it as far as do you pay to come in or?

So you just pay for the child playing and so that helps us monitor the capacity in the play area

And then obviously for your food and and things like that

But we also have memberships and play passes that can follow the child

So we'll have one family will purchase a membership for their child and

Grandma babysits on Tuesdays and brings the kid during the day and gets a cup of tea with her girlfriend

And then Friday night mom and dad go out to dinner

They have 30 minutes to kill before their reservation and they go and let their child play for a little bit before walking out

So it's really fluid. That's great and the play area. What's in it?

Yeah, so we have a play platform with a twirly slide. We have these great

Buildable cushions that kids end up making forts out of and little hidey holes

We have sort of this honeycomb climbing structure that has a little car

We have a makeshift pizza oven in our kitchen that the kids crank stuff through

adorable

So is it within line of sight of where the parents are sitting them? Yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, so there is sort of you know a sectioned off area to kind of help flow

The flow of traffic, but you can essentially see your child

Anywhere you might be sitting. Okay, so if you bring your kids for this at recess cafe

What is the cost if you were just doing it for one time only? 10 dollars an hour. Oh, okay. Yeah

That's great. Yeah. Yeah, is that for per kid or per child?

And then we have discounted rates as you get up into higher kids

And as you stay for longer and then it probably makes sense financially to purchase some of those passes though

Yeah, the passes are the best way to go if you think you're gonna be coming more than once a week or not even you

But if you think your child has the opportunity to come more than once a week with you

Grammar grandpa cool aunt whatever

It is more economical than purchase the passes. Yeah, there you go

So what did you think Ashley when you went down there for the first time? I heard about this from you

Yeah, it's actually I thought it was great

So my children are six and eleven and I was saying that my six-year-old I think is still very much a playable area

But for her and my eleven-year-old who really enjoys coffee and you know

She could read words and things like that

She could come and hang out with me and just like adore all the babies and children because she's also

Mama so and what kind what kind of snacks do you have there?

Yeah, so a lot of pastries. We're actually rolling out a summer menu which will have

handheld sandwiches like pesto grilled cheese and

Salami and cheese things like that

um, I would say more snacky styles

um, but then the summer we also plan to have a

Sort of walk up window where people can grab things to go and walk around and Ashley's been a great help with kind of helping us

Figure out how to do that. That's wonderful

We're talking with Thresan Nichols. She is the founder and owner of recess cafe work and play cafe

You called us a third place. I'm not familiar with that term. What does that mean? So it's not home

It's not work, but you're going to waste some time. So homes first

Homes first place work is second place

Yeah, and this is fun place. Yeah, we see these other locations where people end up for some people

It's church, you know for some people it might be a community or a rec center

And so this is another one of those options

Where you can spend time outside of your home outside of your job with your work as a whole family

located at 208 south Ashley street in downtown Ann Arbor parking is available at first and here on lot

The south Ashley lot

Street parking is also an option with free parking on Sundays and your hours are you open?

Seven days a week or yeah, we are open seven days a week and that was really important parents need to

It's just heart. You know you're you finally had realize you have a free moment and you want to know you can go somewhere

Right, so you're open on weekend Saturday Sunday till seven p.m

And that gives enough time that like you said if you have that reservation later in the evening

You can do this ahead of time and relax and yeah, it's kind of like happy hour

Exactly and open till six p.m. Sunday through

Thursdays

At this great new location is this a model you saw somewhere else or did you just dream this up?

No, I am not unique. These are popping up everywhere

But I will say one

The thing that was missing for me was a lot of models like this offer like more single-serve food in plastic

They're more like child first

And I was like I want to hold a real dish. I'm an adult in my kid can handle it. Yeah, I want to hold a real class. I want

A higher quality of what's being served in spaces like this so it is it's almost like adult first

With space for the kids and a small way this reminds me growing up in Ann Arbor

There used to be a department store called good years. It's in the good year building there

downtown and up on the I want to say it was the second or third floor

There was a little area with a little white picket fence around it and it was a play area for kids

So when moms and dads would go shopping there

They would drop us off on that floor and this was back on the day when you didn't have to worry about where

Your kid was going to be drop you off there and they would do all the shopping and we loved it

You want to go shopping downtown? Yes

Because we knew we were going to play and that's kind of what this concept is like you are not the first person to bring

Is this up to me? No, I love hearing that because even as I hear it. I'm like

I'll leave my kids there

Lovely as a mom. No, I'm like that sounds like such a nice

When I'm free shopping

I know I have such great memories of that

Wonderful. That's fabulous. Another great addition to downtown Ann Arbor recess cafe

You can go online to recess.cafe and find out more information

r-e-c-e-s-s.cafe-c-a-f-e. What else is happening in downtown actually? So we are busy planning for ladies night out

Which will be really exciting. It'll be May 16th and we are accepting um, you know businesses

You're looking to participate whether you're a member or not

And that is just a great night for moms to head out downtown. When is this? This is Saturday May 16th. Okay

Mark your calendars ladies. It's going to be a lot of fun

Yes, and we are partnering with some of our downtown hotels

So if you go on our website you'll be able to get a special rate for that evening

So if you're going out to girlfriends

Um, you can book a hotel downtown so you don't have to drive or you can just sleep in if you want to

Mainstreetanarbor.org for more information

Mainstreetanarbor.org all their members are on there as well

Like recess cafe and you can access them through Mainstreetanarbor.org

But recess.cafe online check it out for your families out there

What a great new addition in downtown Ann Arbor. Thank you so much

Wonderful idea Thresa. Yeah, thank you. We love it. A lot of fun for the kids

Thresa Nichols the founder along with Ashley Schaeffer from the Mainstreet area association

On Ann Arbor's talk station 1290 WLBY