Getting out with the little ones is risky, exhausting, and necessary, and it’s essential to go somewhere that makes it as smooth as possible. In the service of mamas and daddies in Fairbanks, I offer the first in a series of reviews of the toddler and baby friendliness of various venues.
College Coffeehouse, 3677 College Road, Fairbanks, Alaska
http://www.collegecoffeehousefairbanks.com/
Tonight I took the girls out to see a band play at the coffeehouse. Cedar wants to go there to listen to music often. Why not? She likes the songs (especially “Tennessee Central Number 9”) and gets to play with the big bag of busy toys I bring. She has a magnet board, a foam shapes book, silly putty, and a coloring book. She has cocoa and lemon poppyseed bread and seems as at home as any of the hipsters.
Until it’s potty time. No changing table. Any time we’re there we visit the bathroom several times because she wants to see the mural of birch trees on the wall in there, but all we do is look because there’s no where to put her except the floor. There’s plenty of room for a changing table on the lower tree trunks. It would be a toddler’s fantasy. They could look up at the trees. Any muralist who agreed to paint a bathroom could not be terribly offended by the addition of a changing table.
The bizarre thing is the coffeehouse does offer highchairs. Why one and not the other? Are we to feed our children and buy the child’s size cocoa, but expect them to hold it until they get home? In the past I’ve taken her out to the car, but with our frigid winters, that’s not an option. I can’t possibly wipe her with the hatchback open at –30.
I asked the baristas if they had a comment card, and they gave me a post-it note. I wrote a polite missive requesting a changing table. Hopefully, it will come to something. College Coffeehouse is otherwise very welcoming to parents and babies, so I’m hoping the lack of a table is just an oversight. I encourage any other Fairbanks parents to ask for a changing table to be added the next time you’re in for coffee.
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