Neither of those places existed up here (I'm pretty sure), but the restaurant Play Places were an important part of our ecosystem. Our oldest was born in 95 (we're early vintage Xers). In the early 2000s, we lived in a tiny appartment, and we didn't have much at home. There was a McDonalds with a large Play Place a quick bus ride away.
On some rainy or bitter cold days, it was a life and mental health saver. A Happy Meal, a toy (some of which are still kicking around the house), and then the kids played while mom and/or dad read a book or caught up on some work, munching on a few cold left-over fries.
I would call these memories of a bleak time in our lives now, but somehow warm at the same time. I realise I haven't seen a Play Place in a long time. It was funny to read in your article that these were designed with child health and development in mind. Today, they would be designed primarily around liability concerns, which I suppose is what killed them. Along with the general move indoors of children, and the growing availability of video game consoles at home. These were "indoor outdoor" spaces. You went out to go inside when it was necessary. When it became increasingly possible to just stay inside, I guess you did that.
We saw that difference with our youngest, born in 2006. By then we were more comfortable and established. Essentially, no one went outside. It was a completely different childhood from our oldest, just ten years apart.
This is a really thoughtful way to put it. “Indoor outdoor” spaces feels exactly right. They were still part of going out, even if you were technically inside.
I also understand what you mean about those memories being bleak and warm at the same time. A place like that could be a small relief on a hard day, especially when home was cramped and the weather was bad. It is strange how something as ordinary as a McDonald’s Play Place could end up holding that much feeling years later.
I don't know if Leaps and Bounds, or any of the others, ever existed in California. If so, I didn't notice them, likely because I was no longer a child when they emerged. I don’t remember seeing the signs or logos anywhere.
I had no idea that anything like these places even existed until I had children, and once my wife and I discovered them we had no name for them. Our sons started calling them "running places," and to this day that's still what I think of them as being. Until I read the article I didn't know that "indoor play place" was the official name for these things.
That name is great. Running places is probably closer to what they feel like than indoor play place. And I think you are right, if they showed up after your childhood, they would have been very easy to miss. They were usually tucked into shopping centers or strip malls, and unless you had a reason to look for them, the signs probably just blended into the rest of the retail noise.
None of these opened around my neck of the woods, but one thing this article springs to mind is that a big reason why growing up an older Millennial was so fun is there were SO many of us. Kids were everywhere, and thus we were catered to market-wise in ways that are sadly long extinct, due to both declining fertility and screen addiction leading to people simply going out less.
I live in a major city and when my kids were in the "playpen" phase in the late 20teens there were only a couple of independent indoor "Discovery Zone style" places to take our kids; very different from when you had several mational franchises fighting each other for market share (not to mention the multiple arcades, skating rinks etc.). And now McDonalds is closing their play areas en masse. I honestly am sad that my kids will have had an inferior childhood to what my wife and I experienced.
I think there is something to that. There really was a period when kids seemed to be everywhere in public life, and businesses were willing to build whole little worlds around them. Arcades, skating rinks, play places, birthday party rooms, all of that stuff felt normal because there were enough families using them to keep the whole system going.
It is sad to see so much of that fade out. I try not to turn it into a simple “things were better then” argument, because every childhood has its own version of fun, but I do think kids today have fewer shared public spaces built just for them. That does feel like a real loss.
I remember some of the old DZ TV ads from seeing them on American stations. Neither it nor L&B never made it up here into Canada, but we do have some independent places around that are clearly based on their business model.
That makes sense. The TV ads probably traveled farther than the actual locations did. It is interesting how the model still spread even where the big chains never really arrived. Those independent places seem to have kept a version of the idea alive. Kind of prefer that it turned out that way.
Neither of those places existed up here (I'm pretty sure), but the restaurant Play Places were an important part of our ecosystem. Our oldest was born in 95 (we're early vintage Xers). In the early 2000s, we lived in a tiny appartment, and we didn't have much at home. There was a McDonalds with a large Play Place a quick bus ride away.
On some rainy or bitter cold days, it was a life and mental health saver. A Happy Meal, a toy (some of which are still kicking around the house), and then the kids played while mom and/or dad read a book or caught up on some work, munching on a few cold left-over fries.
I would call these memories of a bleak time in our lives now, but somehow warm at the same time. I realise I haven't seen a Play Place in a long time. It was funny to read in your article that these were designed with child health and development in mind. Today, they would be designed primarily around liability concerns, which I suppose is what killed them. Along with the general move indoors of children, and the growing availability of video game consoles at home. These were "indoor outdoor" spaces. You went out to go inside when it was necessary. When it became increasingly possible to just stay inside, I guess you did that.
We saw that difference with our youngest, born in 2006. By then we were more comfortable and established. Essentially, no one went outside. It was a completely different childhood from our oldest, just ten years apart.
This is a really thoughtful way to put it. “Indoor outdoor” spaces feels exactly right. They were still part of going out, even if you were technically inside.
I also understand what you mean about those memories being bleak and warm at the same time. A place like that could be a small relief on a hard day, especially when home was cramped and the weather was bad. It is strange how something as ordinary as a McDonald’s Play Place could end up holding that much feeling years later.
I was too old for these places but they always looked so much fun to me. I had no idea of the link to McDonald's!
Same here. I was a little too old for them too, but they always looked fun. The McDonald’s connection surprised me too when I started looking into it.
I don't know if Leaps and Bounds, or any of the others, ever existed in California. If so, I didn't notice them, likely because I was no longer a child when they emerged. I don’t remember seeing the signs or logos anywhere.
I had no idea that anything like these places even existed until I had children, and once my wife and I discovered them we had no name for them. Our sons started calling them "running places," and to this day that's still what I think of them as being. Until I read the article I didn't know that "indoor play place" was the official name for these things.
That name is great. Running places is probably closer to what they feel like than indoor play place. And I think you are right, if they showed up after your childhood, they would have been very easy to miss. They were usually tucked into shopping centers or strip malls, and unless you had a reason to look for them, the signs probably just blended into the rest of the retail noise.
None of these opened around my neck of the woods, but one thing this article springs to mind is that a big reason why growing up an older Millennial was so fun is there were SO many of us. Kids were everywhere, and thus we were catered to market-wise in ways that are sadly long extinct, due to both declining fertility and screen addiction leading to people simply going out less.
I live in a major city and when my kids were in the "playpen" phase in the late 20teens there were only a couple of independent indoor "Discovery Zone style" places to take our kids; very different from when you had several mational franchises fighting each other for market share (not to mention the multiple arcades, skating rinks etc.). And now McDonalds is closing their play areas en masse. I honestly am sad that my kids will have had an inferior childhood to what my wife and I experienced.
I think there is something to that. There really was a period when kids seemed to be everywhere in public life, and businesses were willing to build whole little worlds around them. Arcades, skating rinks, play places, birthday party rooms, all of that stuff felt normal because there were enough families using them to keep the whole system going.
It is sad to see so much of that fade out. I try not to turn it into a simple “things were better then” argument, because every childhood has its own version of fun, but I do think kids today have fewer shared public spaces built just for them. That does feel like a real loss.
I remember some of the old DZ TV ads from seeing them on American stations. Neither it nor L&B never made it up here into Canada, but we do have some independent places around that are clearly based on their business model.
That makes sense. The TV ads probably traveled farther than the actual locations did. It is interesting how the model still spread even where the big chains never really arrived. Those independent places seem to have kept a version of the idea alive. Kind of prefer that it turned out that way.