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The best child friendly cafes in the local area

Posted on 10 May, 2018 by Sarah Hart

Going out for a coffee or lunch with little ones can either be an enjoyable experience or a logistical nightmare. It definitely helps if you can find a child-friendly cafe or restaurant that is equipped with high chairs, has a healthy and affordable kids menu and is welcoming to families. Hopefully this blog post will help you to pick a suitable place to enjoy with your kids and to suggest some new places to try out – any excuse for a cuppa and some cake!

Sevenoaks

The Little Fawn Play Cafe at the Stag

Address: Stag Community Arts Centre, London Road, Sevenoaks TN13 1ZZ

Website: stagsevenoaks.co.uk

Opening times: Monday to Saturday, open from 10am

A hidden gem in the heart of Sevenoaks, the Little Fawn Cafe is a great find for parents with young children. The large cafe space is very family friendly and has a corner just for kids with books, toys, kids tables and chairs, and comfy sofas for the adults to relax on. Note: the cafe is welcoming to breastfeeding mums. There are plenty of tables and wooden high chairs, and there are baby change facilities on the same floor. The only downside is getting up there. You can either navigate the large open staircase (two flights of stairs) or parents with buggies can use the lift. This is a bit of a faff to get to and it is a small lift, but when you get upstairs there is plenty of space to park your buggy. The cafe serves hot and cold drinks, cakes, sandwiches, salads, jacket potatoes and soup, as well as a kid’s lunchbox option that includes sandwiches, crisps and a drink.

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Soft Play Cafe at Sevenoaks Rugby Club

Address: Sevenoaks Rugby Club, Knole Paddock, Plymouth Drive, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3RP

Website: www.thesoftplaycafe.co.uk

Opening hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays school term-time ONLY, 9am-3.30pm

Based in Sevenoaks Rugby Club, the Soft Play Cafe is a brilliant place to let your kids run around and play, and it has free parking onsite for four hours. Dedicated to parents and active children under five, it has a soft-play area, mats and bouncy chairs for babies, loads of ride ons, as well as dressing up, a play kitchen and a range of toys and books. Everything is contained in one room, meaning you can sit and drink a coffee without worrying that your child has run off. There are comfortable sofas for mums who want to feed babies, as well as large tables and lots of IKEA highchairs. The cafe has hot and cold drinks and snacks, as well as light lunches. For kids, it does a lunch box and a few hot meals. There’s also free squash, water and fresh fruit available. We are big fans of owner Diane’s homemade cakes (orange rocky road is a favourite). There are baby change facilities, as well as free wipes and nappy bags. Entry is £3 per child and is just £2.50 per child if you have a LoveLocal card.

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Basecamp Cafe at Reuthes

Address: Reuthe’s Nursery, Sevenoaks Road, Seal Chart, Kent, TN15 0HB

Website: https://reuthes.com/pages/basecamp-cafe

Opening hours: Tues – Fri 9am-3pm, Sat 9am-4:30pm and Sunday 10am-3pm

Basecamp Cafe is set in Reuthes the nursery and woodlands just off the A25. It’s open daily from 9am and serves breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. Lots of wondeful homemade cake options (it claims to have the best chocolate brownies in Kent) and in the summer months there’s a lovely choice of ice creams and lollies for your little ones. If the weather is good, you can include a walk with your little ones round The Lost Gardens of Sevenoaks – a magical 11-acres of rare species woodland. Also look out for children’s events that are held throughout the year. 

Tonbridge

The Finch House Cafe & Bakery

Address: Unit 15, The Pavilion Shopping Centre, High St, Tonbridge TN9 1TE

Website: https://www.finchhousebakery.co.uk/

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 7am-6pm, Saturday 8am-6pm and Sunday 8:30am – 5pm

This is the place if you want a really great lunch as well as a catch up with friends. Whilst there is nothing to make this a child-friendly cafe in the sense that there is no play area, it’s a fairly large cafe, great for getting buggies in and meeting up with bigger groups of mums. This cafe offers great salads, delicious cheese toasties and wonderful cakes! Yum!

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Cafe Comma

Address: Christ Church, High St, Tonbridge TN9 1SG

Website: www.christchurchtonbridge.com

Opening hours: Tuesday mornings, term time ONLY, 9.30am-11.30am

Held upstairs at Christ Church, Cafe Comma is a free playgroup that also serves hot and cold drinks and snacks. Entry is free of charge and for a £3 donation you can get a toasted teacake or cookie, a hot drink AND a cold drink and snack for your child. There’s a specific area for babies and lots of different toys and activities for children up to age five. The large hall has space for at least five buggies, baby-change facilities downstairs and plenty of different toys, from dressing up to play kitchens and sticklebricks – there’s also a different craft activity each week. Cafe Comma is up two flights of stairs, but there is a lift right next to the stairs. You don’t have to be a member of the church to attend. Best of all, there’s a group of lovely helpers who will play with your children while you drink your coffee!

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Broadview Tea Room

Address: Tonbridge Road, Hadlow Garden Centre, Hadlow, Tonbridge TN11 0DZ

Website: http://broadviewgardens.co.uk/tea-room/

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday & Bank Hols 10am-4pm

This is my favourite cafe at the moment – delicious food, space for the children’s buggies, an outdoor play space and the option to walk round some pretty gardens in the warmer months. Okay, so it’s not really Tonbridge – just a short 5 minutes drives out of Tonbridge towards Hadlow, there’s plenty of free parking and it’s another great option for you to hang out with some mum friends.  I can highly recommend English breakfast here!

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Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells Baby Café

Address: Christ Church, High Street, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN1 1UT

Website: https://www.thebabycafe.org/

Opening hours: Term time Mondays from 10am – 12pm

The Tunbridge Wells Baby Café is a drop in breastfeeding drop in centre run by a range of staff including health professionals (midwives, health visitors, or lactation consultants); practitioners such as nursery nurses; or breastfeeding counsellors from the voluntary breastfeeding organisations.  Currently only open on term time Mondays, it offers pregnant or breastfeeding mums the chance: to drop in to seek support or advise on breastfeeding; meet other local mums and share experiences; access one-to-one help for breastfeeding should you need it. If you have not fed your baby whilst being out and about before, Baby Café is the perfect environment to bridge the gap from being at home to feeding elsewhere.

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The Little Play Cafe

Address: 142 London Road, Southborough, Kent TN4 0PJ

Website: www.thelittleplaycafe.co.uk/ 

Opening hours: 9am-4.30pm

Opened in April 2018, The Little Play Cafe is a coffee shop that serves home-cooked bistro quality food. It also has a free play area for children under five. It will be hosting daily nursery-nurse-led sessions from just 50p, such a baby sensory sessions, and unique events. The cafe serves snacks, breakfast and lunch, and has an extensive children’s menu, as well as coffee, tea and home-made cakes. It also has lots of healthy options, which is a refreshing change to ‘something with chips’. The soft-play is free for toddlers and the cafe even has the motto ‘the cafe you love… as much as your child’. The décor is bright, playful and quirky, and the cafe really is geared towards parents and children. A no brainer if you want to have a relaxed coffee or lunch with your friends and family.

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Babycino Cafe

Address: 13 Chapel Pl, Tunbridge Wells TN1 1YQ

Website: no website but Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/babycinocafe/

Opening hours: Monday to Friday 9.30am – 4:30pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm

Babycino Cafe is based between the Old High Street and the Pantiles and is a small but very family friendly cafe.  Staff make you feel very welcome. A massive bonus is the dedicated play area in the basement! This lends itself to being a great venue for birthday parties and there are often classes/workshops held here. This cafe is popular with the locals in Tunbridge Wells and can get quite busy at times, but that all adds to the friendly, community feel of this space.

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Trinity Cafe

Address: Trinity Theatre, Church Rd, Royal Tunbridge Wells TN1 1JP

Website: https://www.trinitytheatre.net/

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 9am – 8pm

A fabulous place to hang out with your mummy friends, the cafe is quite large with plenty of space for buggies. There’s a wide range of offerings for food – check out their lunch time menus which range from the usual sandwich and cake options to vegan options and more unusual temptings (Black pudding Scotch eggs?!).  Another advantage is it can be a great place to go to pre or post visiting Trinity Theatre’s productions – often many great things for the children to see.

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Creams Cafe

Address: 31-37 Grosvenor Road, Tunbridge Wells TN1 2AN

Website: www.creamscafe.com

Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, 11am-5pm

Opened at the beginning of 2018, Creams is a popular franchise with branches around the country. If you haven’t heard the hype, the ice-cream parlour sells mouthwateringly good sundaes, waffles, milkshakes and pretty much anything that will give your children a major sugar rush! The Tunbridge Wells branch is huge with retro decor and has literally every flavour of ice cream you can imagine. Once the kids have enjoyed their sweet treats, you can let them loose in the soft play area. Creams has a very casual atmosphere and is ideal for families with older and younger children alike. It is a great place to head for tea or coffee, or an afternoon treat, but does not serve savoury, lunch items.

Supporting our local small businesses is so important. For more ways to help support small businesses take a look at this blog: Supporting Small Businesses