New play cafe 'will hopefully help bring colour back' to neglected part of Carrickfergus town centre
The News Letter has recently reported on dual blows to Carrickfergus’ High Street – but just a short distance away a new business has now opened up.
Little Steps Play Cafe, run by mother-of-two Caitlin McCleery, is up and running as of a couple of weeks ago.
It stands on West Street, which had fallen on hard times in recent years with some premises shuttered and replaced with fake shop facades.
At the other end of the road, Dobbins Inn hotel closed last month after several hundred years in business and Bell’s newsagents moved out of its big, prominent, decades-old store to a much smaller one in Market Place, leaving two giant gaps in the High Street.
"I’d be the only play cafe really in Carrick”, said Mrs McCleery, aged 26 and from the town.
She draws a distinction between it and Miniville Play at Sullatober, “which is more of a roleplay-type thing”.
Her idea is that “adults can come and enjoy a coffee whilst their children play safely”.
She has a soft-play area for babies, a roleplay room, a quiet room, and a sensory room.
The notion came to her while on maternity with her daughter, “because if I had wanted to go to somewhere like that I’d have had to have travelled to, say, Mallusk or even further”.
On West Street and the town centre she said “there definitely are a lot of shops that have closed and are lying just derelict, but hopefully this brings a bit of colour back to West Street and makes it look a bit more alive”.
She said the council could put some money into West Street “to make it look more lively – buildings could be repainted, even things like flowers, just to make it look more bright and welcoming”.
Mrs McCleery also said rates on the street are “very high”.
As well as herself, she employs a full-time member of staff and a part-time one.
She had previously been a classroom assistant in Belfast Royal Academy for a child with additional needs.
"I’m honestly just excited,” she said of her new venture.
"So far, so good…
"Based on what everybody is telling me, Carrick definitely needed something like this for the children.
"There’s the cinema and things like that for older children, but for younger children from age nought to six which my play cafe caters for, we don’t have a great deal.”