Ad disclosure: We were invited to spend the morning at The Guild pub, and given lunch in order to try out the new play area. This post reflects our honest opinion.
Yesterday we spent the morning at a local Brewers Fayre “Pub Restaurant” to celebrate the opening of the chain’s first “Play at Brewers Fayre” facility. The new soft play area at The Guild pub at Bromsgrove is the next step in their partnership with Beano, whose characters already adorn the kids menu.
We arrived at the pub mid-morning and were greeted at the door by Dennis the Menace and his dog Gnasher. James was excited to meet one of his childhood heroes… but Georgie wasn’t so keen. She really doesn’t like people in character costumes so she hid behind my leg while James and Lydia went to say hello!
Once we edged past Dennis, we headed inside and found out that first on our agenda was to visit Santa. Georgie is really excited about all things Christmas this year, and this excitment definitely extends to meeting Santa – but she becomes completely overcome with shyness as soon as she gets near to the big guy!
She declared afterwards that she enjoyed it though, and Lydia definitely loved the experience. She couldn’t wait to get into her present and even enlisted the help of one of the pair of “Santa’s Little Helpers” to open it for her. Two girls, relatives of employees, were absolutely loving playing elf and were very self importantly ushering people too & from Santa’s corner, handing him presents from his sacks and telling everyone where to stand. They were really cute and definitely helped put our girls at ease.
Next we headed into the play area which is seperated from the main restaurant by a pair of heavy doors, which are perfect for helping to prevent small people escaping! A small refreshment/welcome desk is by the entrance, and then there are a number of tables, chairs & comfortable bench seats at one side of the area.
The bulk of the play area is taking up by a large play frame, but there is also a smallish party room as well, with tables & child size chairs for the kids, and another comfy bench seat along one side for accompanying adults. They had this set up as a colouring room with Christmas cards and decorations to colour in, with Beano cartoons playing on the large tv set into one wall. Beano tablecloths and some Beano wall art beneath the tv kept the comic book feel going even in this room.
After chilling out a bit with the pens & crayons, the girls were eager to get playing! The play frame is well designed for the size area and I really liked that Lydia could get around a lot of it without needing help. She isn’t two until February, but she was able to make it all the way to the top (and down again) without more than the watchful eye of her Daddy, which is great. She is an adventurous little girl, and loves to be a little monkey – but gets frustrated when play areas are poorly designed and too difficult for her little legs. This one at The Guild is really great and they spent ages in there.
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher were wandering in and out and Lydia really enjoyed coming to say hello to him, high-fiving him with great enjoyment.
As well as the larger area of the play frame, there was an area designed for babies and toddlers, with small steps up and a little slide down, and then plenty of little games and some spinning things that Lydia loved. A couple of baby walkers and a pair of Little Tikes cosy coupes were avaliable for the kids to play on too, and there was even a sort of chill out/throw yourself around like a loon area full of huge beanbags that all the kids loved. In short, there seemed to be something for all ages from 0 to 10.
One lovely touch was the floor; around the play area it was a slightly soft flooring that was printed with stepping stones, pathways, and even a hopscotch bit that all the kids seemed to have a go on. Georgie really liked jumping from one stepping stone to the next, and it added a great splash of colour to the floor. Looking up, large Beano character banners hung from the ceiling – the place was covered in the characters and bright colours from top to bottom and it gave it a really fun vibe.
We headed back into the main restuarant area for lunch, and it was a very tasty meal. The kids ate food off the Beano kids menu and both enjoyed it; Lydia had the popin’ chicken and Georgie enjoyed a pineapple pizza. The chips and beans went down well too, and they loved their desserts; brownie & ice cream for our cake loving toddler and jelly & ice cream for Georgie. James went for the sausage, egg & chips with lemon cheesecake for pudding, while I opted for smothered chicken followed by chocolate fudge cake.
We all really enjoyed our meals, the puddings especially! My slab of chocolate fudge cake was delicious but so huge that James and Georgie had to help me finish it off. We headed back to the play area to have a bit more fun before heading home. Lydia was having a lot of fun running about with Lexi-Arizona (one of the Tiny 3s) and Georgie decided that after hours of saying no that she suddenly needed to have her face painted.
We had a great time at The Guild, and the new play area is fantastic. It costs £3 per child for 90 minutes of play, and is open every day from 9:30am to 8pm. There are activites mid-week for toddlers and older kids, after school. If you are local to the Bromsgrove area and looking for a decent meal and entertainment for your children, I would definitely recommend it.
I’ve never been to a Brewers Fayre and after this I’d love to visit one. I thought the soft play might be complimentary – it’s a shame if you’re going there for a meal that you have to pay extra for the soft play… x
yum yum we love a Brewers fayre especially now the kids areas are Beano themed! x