AUBURN — As Meghan Levesque sat at an indoor play spot with her then-2-year-old and 7-month-old girls, relaxing after working for TD Bank all week, she had a business-opening epiphany.
They’d driven 40 minutes for something fun to do outside the house that weekend. They needed something like this closer.
“It seemed like an easy thing to start. It wasn’t,” she said, laughing.
That trip was in October 2014, and within a month the idea had firmly taken hold.
Last December, during time off, “I just lived at Starbucks and created a business plan and kind of went from there,” Levesque, 30, said.
At the same time, she and her husband, Jon, started poking around the Twin Cities for space.
Kiddo’s opened in April, in a former auto parts store at 945 Center St. across from the Emerson dealerships.
“They had drains in the floor — it was concrete and hanging lights when we moved in,” she said.
It took two months to make it her own: Carpet, a hand-washing station, whimsical murals on the walls, things to climb on, through and over, slides, a playhouse and more.
She’s targeting children from birth to age 6. Levesque said she wanted to offer a clean, safe, fun place to play. It’s open every day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Daughters Avery, now 3, and Addison, 18 months, are her toy focus group. She adds something new every month.
“They’d have a toy to play with for a day and then I’d bring it here. I’m like, ‘Sorry!'” said Levesque.
During the week, she still works as a project manager for TD Bank.
“I work from home and all the people I work with are in Canada, I don’t get that day-to-day contact,” she said. “(This) was my own little project that turned big. Looking back, I can’t believe we were able to get it together (so quickly).”
She spends weekends at Kiddo’s, picking up and wiping down — there’s a lot of both — managing social media and organizing events. She’s hosted up to five birthday parties in one weekend.
“We had one cake-in-the-carpet issue, that’s it,” Levesque said.
Originally from Connecticut, she moved to Maine in 2008 to work for TD Bank and met her husband here. “The best part is meeting people,” she said. “Even though I’ve been here for years, I feel really new to the area.”
Kiddo’s regularly sees stay-at-home moms, grandparents, preschool and day care groups and, to her surprise, a lot of dads, Levesque said.
One came in once and didn’t see when his little girl slipped out of her clothes and into dress-up clothes hanging on the wall.
Levesque said she didn’t realize it either until she was picking up at the end of the day and found clothes in the corner she couldn’t remember buying.
Dad hadn’t noticed the difference. At home, mom did.
“It was such a funny thing,” Levesque said. “They came back and returned the tutus.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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