Perch & Play

Pretty cool place for my kid to come play. Clean, relaxed environment. Upstairs has a tv for me to watch football! Will be coming back again.

I don’t know why this place has low reviews. We’ve been coming here for the past 2 years and love it! My now 5 and 3 year old still ask to come constantly. For my 3 year old we’ve had his past two birthdays there. Talk about stress free. It was wonderful and i highly recommend as they take care of all the details for you. All you do is show up! In regards to food, everything we’ve eaten is delicious and they serve wine and beer (which was great for the parties). If you want a great place for your kids to play and for you to sit back and relax, this is the place.

Great spot to let the kids run around while you have an espresso or a snack. The food is pretty good and all the employees do a great job keeping the kids in line without being too strict.

My kids love it!!! And I love that I have the extra eyes with the supervision that they provide. I wish *some* of the staff was more welcoming and friendly. I always feel awkward walking in haha. But my coffee is always tasty and my kids always leave tired

What a fantastic idea. We bring our toddler son here every time we come to Bellingham to visit my parents. The play space is large with tons of slides, toys, and things to climb. The food is very good and reasonably priced. And they serve beer and wine! That alone is worth a star. The staff is also very nice and seems to genuinely love children.
I like this idea so much that I’m contemplating stealing it and opening something similar in Palo Alto. My only improvement would be the addition of a full bar. Cocktail playtime here we come.

I wish I could post two reviews, one for the facilities, which are very nice and great fun for the kids, and one for the food, staff, and camp program. The food is really not very good. It should not be too difficult to make a decent pizza. The staff lack maturity. For example, when we called to see if our kid needed to bring anything to camp, the initial response was, «we don’t ALLOW outside food.» (Emphasis theirs. Who said anything about food, btw?) I received a not very discreet eye roll when presented with the credit card slip for our two hours of play and chose to forgo the tip line, figuring I was already paying well for the privilege of being there and had received absolutely zero service. Everyone checks in by computer, and it is not necessary to even speak to anyone, so, um, what service am I apparently expected to tip for? The camp was a bit misleadingly described. There were no games. The kids spent the entire time sitting at a table in the classroom with I think two 10 – 15 minute play breaks. It’s not camp. It’s school. And not a very imaginative one. If a substitute for school is what you’d like, this is ok, but do not be fooled by the description. It’s not like any other camp our kids have attended. We may go back to play, but they really would need to step up their game plan to make the «camp» at all fun or interesting enough for a summer activity.

What a great Idea! We just went to a birthday party here. face painting, beer, and baby area! Yes we will be back indeed!!!

Great idea but they are Over priced! They charge you $ 6 for an hour; a minute over & they charge you for a whole day! The coffee wasn’t that great.

The idea is genius. Why is there not a Perch and Play in every city? We were from out of town and in Bellingham for a couple days. We needed something to do. The wife and I were able to sit back and enjoy a beer and conversation while our 5 year old daughter made friends and played. It was a nice break for all of us.

Updating this review, as we’ve visited many times. The food choices are delicious, and they give lots of yummy and healthy options for the kids, too.
One of my favorites is The Cobb on toasted panini bread. It’s so different from anything I normally eat but it’s delicious.
My kids like their pizzas and sandwiches (served with a side of carrots and a drink).
We come here often. The staff is excellent, and everything about this place feels «cared for» and clean.
My kids are 3 and 5 and can spend hours playing here.

The atmosphere is cute and sunny, but I felt that the actual play area was built for a very small age range…3−5 years old.
I went to Perch & Play with a 21 month old, a 7 year old and a 10 year old. The 10 year old was WAY too big for everything. I was afraid the play structure would break if she climbed on anything because it seemed much smaller in person than it appears on the website. The 7 year old was too big for most things as well, except he liked the slide and the blocks (which we have at home so it wasn’t worth the cost of the trip for him). The toddler section doesn’t have anything to climb on and the toys were more appropriate for a 15 month old or younger. Our toddler was thoroughly bored with the toddler section after 3 – 4 minutes since she is a climber. I snuck her into the big kid section and she was as happy as a clam. (I am not sure why they have a sign saying you have to be 3 to enter because 21 months seemed perfect for their small structure.) My toddler loved the big kid area… I think they should change the policy so anyone can play in there.
A grandma came over to ask (in her «you idiot voice») why I brought my toddler into the big kid area when the sign says it is for 3 year olds. You gotta love grandmas. So not only did I have a bored 10 year old, a bored 7 year old, and a toddler who was bored with the toddler area, but I also had a cranky grandma staring us down for breaking the rules.
My other big complaint: There is a medium-​sized slide, but the base of the slide shoots kids out onto the wooden stair railing. It was poorly installed and I am shocked that no one has left with a concussion. I was surprised it passed any sort of safety inspection. (I own the slide and the instructions are very clear that you can’t have anything at the base of the slide… clearly they didn’t care about the instructions.)
When you arrive you are greeted by a computer screen and keyboard instead of a person. There are no instructions but you are expected to fill out all your personal info before you bring you children inside. The clock starts ticking as soon as you enter your information into the computer. For us, we had to go back to the car to get some socks because everyone needs socks, so the computer assumed we started 15 minutes earlier than we actually did. (So basically the time we spent in the parking lot fiddling in the car and drinking water counted towards our hour of «fun» and I clearly didn’t need to pay for a second hour). Weird. I thought it was quite impersonal, but maybe others like just entering their personal info (and birthdates) into some random computer sitting unsupervised in an empty hallway. (Needless to say, I just entered a bunch of random crap so we could go inside. Not like I was going to give some unknown machine my children’s birthdates, especially knowing there was NO security whatsoever.)
Basically if you have a 3 – 5 year old kid, this place is fun. if you have a kid older or younger, this place is not age appropriate.

great space, awesome toys, love the mason jar coffee but way too expensive. it’s $ 2 more per hour than our DROP-​OFF childcare in seattle. we would rather go to the bellingham children’s museum for $ 4.50 each.