Firefly Play Cafe

This a a great play café for your little ones to run around. It has a lot of open space. It is more of a play place verses a play café. They have a variety of toys to play with. The music class is fun when they bring in a guy to sing, play instruments and interact with the kids. The place seems clean and safe besides the stair structure in the middle makes me nervous. The parking is not the greatest. Only a small amount of spaces in front of it and it’s shared with other businesses too. So it’s often street parking which can be difficult with little ones.

Great place to get the kids some energy release while taking a bit of a break!
Our 11 month old found plenty to explore and our 5 year old was having a blast!
Nice selection of teas and brewed coffee — was hoping to have a small bite but only snacks were available to purchase so that was the only bummer.

Overall, it’s a cute little place to bring your littles to tire them out! Couple of things I wasn’t fond of: big stack of concrete ‘blocks’ in the middle of the room that the kids can climb. :/​And there wasn’t a great drink selection for adults. We normally go to PeaPod in Gahanna and their menu for adults and children is much better.

The cost to enter is so much! I had such high hopes for this place, I wanted a place to get out of the rain and let my son who is 4 play while I drank a good cup of coffee. I had no idea I would be charged for him to play, let alone 8 dollars just for admission! It’s your typical doctor office toys and a small bouncy house.
This place would be great if it were a few dollars but that’s almost a zoo ticket for a twenty to thirty minute stop and there isn’t much more time for a small child to be entertained here.
Also I thought it was a coffee shop but they just have regular tea and coffee. It’s not really a coffee shop like I thought, which is fine but I thought I would warn any other mums and dads.
I thought what a cool idea a place to drink coffee meet other parents let your kids play out of the rain, but 8 bucks just to play? And then you order food and drinks on top of that? I think if you get food that should be considered. That’s to much for a place that isn’t that big.

So we’ve been taking my 20 month old nephew here the past few Saturdays. It’s an awesome concept but I’ve got some feedback on the execution. First the lowdown on what this place is exactly. It’s more on the side of play and not as much a café. It’s an indoor playroom/​playground for kids – average age 1 – 3 years old – approximately $ 5/​kid. A playhouse, a train table, climbing blocks, a play kitchen, and a bounce house for the older kids. Scooters, see-​saws, poppers, all sorts of toys zoom around the spacious room. Tables and couches around the perimeter. I hate to say it but more parents getting their chat on rather than supervising their youngins’. There’s a counter that serves coffee, juices, teas and snick snacks. Parents can leave their shoes on, but kids must take theirs off which is strange to me because you end up following your kid and going everywhere he goes in the set up. You can definitely tell the kids who are in a group daycare situation – they’re willing to share toys! Some kids are quite unsocialized but this may be why their parents are bringing them here! What is odd to me is Firefly’s hours. Why aren’t they open on Sundays? It’s very low overhead and in these winter months it’s good to get your kid out to burn off some steam. (At least in the morning on a Sunday – I know they do parties too.) This place definitely caters to the SAHM. It’s clean and well-​kept but the fixtures, equipment and toys could be renewed and upgraded and there’s an opportunity for better design and decorating. Only other gripe is the lack of shared parking with the Verizon and Kayak store – get there early if you want a parking spot!

Nice place to go when the weather is not optimal. The only thing I don’t like is that it is shoe free for kids but it is not enforced for adults. I would like to see the adults take off their shoes as well to not track in all the outside stuff for the kids to walk around in their socks in.

This was the first plat café I’d been to. Its location is great, near sprout soup, near north star, etc. We ended up having a kids birthday party here. So creative, open-​ended toys, great snack options. I would like the parents to supervise older kids more so I didn’t have to ask the staff to intervene.

I took my two year old son here for the first time this past week. He had a great time and didn’t want to leave. A few things that bothered me:
1. Need more closet or storage space for coats, bags, etc. It was a Monday and we got there at about 10:15AM. It was very busy and there was no where for us to hang our coats or to put the diaper bag, so I found a random place on the floor to shove our stuff. The few chairs by the entrance had other people’s stuff thrown across it so to get my son out of his winter wear I had to sit on the floor which I don’t normally mind but b/​c of the snow the floor was dirty and wet.
2. This is not a daycare! My biggest frustration was the several women I saw with their nose in their computer and/​or socializing with a friend and literally paying NO attention to where their child was or what they were doing. There was one boy who kept trying to push my son down the slide and I had to ask him multiple times to play nice and that shoving isn’t nice. His Mom was nowhere to be found. This isn’t a daycare and as a working Mom who took the day off to do something special with my son I found it rude and just plain mind boggling that people just let their kids run rampant with no supervision except for the supervision of strangers.
3. The 1 employee working spent most of her time on her phone and I only saw her come out into the play space one time — not to pick up or make sure kids were playing appropriately but to socialize.
Despite these criticisms, I am going to give Fire Fly another chance b/​c the smile on my son’s face the whole time he was there was worth these inconveniences.

Troy says «good place to baby watch!»

What a great place to bring a toddler for fun, play and to tire out!

I really do want to love this place. I really like the new owner. She is super nice, and even though I don’t frequent the café alot with my daughter, she always remembers us. Here are the things that have started to bother me about the café which may or may not change.
1. I feel like every time I am there during the «busy» times I am watching other people’s children. I don’t mind for a little bit, but I feel that I am respectful of other folks kids, and if my daughter is disrespectful to them, I am watching her enough that I make sure she apologizes etc. or we are going home. I hate having to discipline or yell at a child because they are beating up on another child basically because their parent is too busy chatting it up with another parent to watch their child. I just don’t think that this should be accepted by the staff at Firefly Café.
2. I hate that it gets sooooooo busy. I mean, there are times during the day that I would never even dream of going there. For that reason, we don’t typically go. It would be nice if there were assigned days or if they would slightly limit the number of children who were playing there. I mean, at some point it does get a little dangerous… especially when there are older and much younger kids mixed together
3. I almost feel like there should be an age limit on kids who are running around playing there during certain days, because it has been my experience that those can be the children that get very rough with some of the younger kids. Especially when their parent’s are not paying attention to them.
I really love the idea of an indoor play place. Especially because of our winters and sometimes very hot summer days. In addition, I have Fibromyalgia which causes me to not be able to climb and play with my daughter on the playground like I would like, and a place like this really serves a wonderful purpose for someone who has this type of condition with a toddler. However, I limit the time we come here just because of how crazy it can get and how parents are allowed to not watch their children.

This place is good for older toddlers and preschool children. It does not offer much for pre-​walkers. The classes that are offered are also for older children. I like that they offer tea and coffee on site. I agree that there needs to be more soft areas as well. I am excited to see what changes the new owner makes.

We just got back from a birthday party at Firefly Play Café. My son had a great time in the bounce house and playing with the rolling toys («yellow cars» as he called them.)
Most importantly, there’s lots of room to roam and let kids be kids. I have a feeling we’ll back for a play day soon.

I spotted this on Unilocal and it made me curious enough to stop in and see it for myself. When I walked in the door I was met by thirty screaming kids. Not really. ;) But they were making quite a racket. That didn’t bother me so much as the fact that most of the moms were shooting the breeze and leaving the kids to do what they wanted to do. There’s a pole in the middle of the room and they’ve made steps to climb and a platform in the middle and I was truly amazed that one of those kids didn’t fall off and crack his head on the floor. Ditto for the one ladded that goes to the slide. But maybe I’m just an old fuddy-​duddy or something. LOL

My wife and I took our son to Fire Fly for the first time around 2:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. Everything was going fine, although much of the «homemade» play center is of poor construction and unsafe, when the owner approached us and told us that they closed at 1:00 and this was a private party. Then, just walked away with no apology or explanation, as if we (the customers) were intruding. If these nitwits aren’t competent enough to post their hours on the door and put up a sign when they are having a private party, then I certainly wouldn’t trust their judgement when it comes to the safety of a child. We were humiliated and certainly will never return.

Clean, courteous, well-​lit and easy to watch, these attributes I would add to the prior reviews. My kids of four and two were reluctant to leave after some two hours –always a good sign. There’s free wifi. Probably, above four it might get old after a shorter time.

This place is great — it is perfect for that mid-​day break when you need some time with a book and a cup of coffee and you have little kids at home.
The toys here are minimal but amazing — I think the fact that the room isn’t filled with tiny blocks and piles of legos and stuffed animals is what makes it so calming and fun for kids. My 2 year old can get overwhelmed with lots of toys, but he adores being able to focus on one thing for a while and then move to another very easily. The bouncy house is great — and the choices of toys are just spectacular! So creative.
You do have to keep an eye on your kids though, I can imagine it might get annoying if there were a parent that was engrossed in a magazine and letting their kid be unsupervised. But the room is open enough there aren’t many places for kids to hide, so it’s easy to see your kids if you’re sitting at the couch, or one of the four tables along the big front windows.
We’ll definitely be back to Firefly — my son asks for it every day. I would like to see a monthly rate along with the $ 5 per day (not that it’s expensive) for those of us who live close and might come a few times a week.

Firefly Play Café is a great place to take small children for an inexpensive time away from home.
For $ 5 for children ages 2+, $ 3 for children ages 1 — 2 and Free for adults and babies under 1, you get an entire huge room full of toys, books, and jungle gyms.
This would be a wonderful place to take a group of children or to meet other parents. There is a comfy couch area or tables and chairs for the adults. For the kids, you’ve got: a jungle gym with a slide, ladder, and lots of climbing opportunities; a bouncy room; a small shed that is painted with chalkboard paint and includes chalk; carts to wheel around in; a doll house with dolls, furniture and accessories; and some dress-​up items.
While you hang out and let the little ones run around, you can relax and enjoy coffee or tea (iced or hot) at unbelievable prices. For a small, it’s $ 1.50, for a large it’s $ 1.75. There are also kid-​friendly snacks available for $ 1 each.
Really, this place is ideal for toddlers through age 5 or 6. My son (at a year and not yet walking) did really enjoy it, though. I just let him crawl around and explore.
I would highly recommend this place as a great time away from home, especially in the winter or on hot summer days. Highly recommended.