Being Expat the Kid: Café & Play at Purkynova Street

Do your little darlings everything they can to drive you crazy? An ideal place for a tactical retreat – and on top of that somewhere where you can communicate with the staff in English – is Café & Play, situated at 45 Purkyňova street.


A classic situation. It’s pouring rain and your little darlings are doing things like sticking screwdrivers into the sockets and doing everything they can to drive you crazy, Your nerves are frayed and your weekend is about to go down the drain.

Trapped in this situation, you just don’t have enough energy to come up with something “educational”, something “socially creative”. So forget about psychology. And in fact you’re not really interested in fostering a feeling of family solidarity – what you’re looking for is a cease-fire and a bit of a rest.

An ideal place for a tactical retreat – and on top of that somewhere where you can communicate with the staff in English – is Café & Play, situated at 45 Purkyňova street. More than two-thirds of its floor space is given over to kids, with lots of toys and lots of enthusiastically screaming kids with parents who’ve been suffering just like you.

Your problem’s solved! Unless of course your kids are frightened by the cats painted on the walls, because “the artist’s ability to capture a child’s view of the world” seems mostly to reflect some deep trauma from the painter’s childhood.

The entrance fee for kids is 39 Kč, which goes towards keeping up the supply of toys; adults get in for free. I’m not sure whether seniors and soldiers are given the usual 50% discount.

The prices for drinks and snacks are the same as in the usual quiet, sleepy cafés, so a standard family with two children, two juices, two coffees and two cakes to soothe shattered nerves can expect to run through about 270 Kč (10 EUR) in the course of an hour.

Well, yes, like any other liberation, this one comes at a cost – something we here in the Czech Republic know a bit about.


Richard Lank & Don Sparling