Coffee Shops With Toddlers

2026-06-30

I went on a trip with my Grandma and our family, our kids got to hang out with their great grandma and I got to see my cousins. We took a trip to a Santa Cruz cabin and stayed there one night, there were some hard parts, we had to all sleep in one room and I think our youngest is starting to get more active. When I got up at 5AM to pee he started to cry at the top of his lungs, ‘Daddy, Daddy’. I felt bad for him and I also felt bad for my sleeping family.

And that same night our youngest got up at 6AM and he was awake in his pack and play. Everyone else in the house was asleep, our oldest kid was asleep, my wife was asleep. I am generally a morning person so I usually handle the baby in the morning, this is a little early but in a new place I would gather get up at 6AM than try to wait until he fell back asleep and wake every person up, he has a very loud cry. So I got him up, changed his diaper, and got in the car. The car was away from the house and so we wouldn’t wake anyone up in the car. I remember Googling a few spots that would be open the night before, since I had anticipated something like this happened, and I found direction to a coffee shop, Peet’s, and drove there. It took fifteen or twenty minutes and we drove past some small quaint towns in the Santa Cruz hills until we arrived at a small sleepy strip mall with a bunch of closed shops, a closed grocery store, but a very open coffee shop.

I walked in with our youngest, he was wearing socks and no shoes so I carried him into the store but let him walk around once we got inside. I ordered a coffee (mocha) for me and a pastry for us. I sat down with him, drank coffee and ate the food. I tried to drink the coffee slowly since I knew I was going to be there a while. After we finished the breakfast he got restless and wanted to walk around, so for a good while we just wandered around the coffee shop. It was pretty empty so I didn’t feel guilty. Patrons came in, ordered coffee, left. Someone with a dog walked in an my youngest immediate wanted to pet the dog. He also inspected all of the coffee beans, waved to the baristas, and generally had a good time. We did this for a long while, maybe forty five minutes, until my wife called telling me our oldest was getting up and that I could come back to the cabin.

And I really appreciated the coffee shop, a warm place open very early where a toddler could walk around. Perhaps part of it was because it was a small town but everyone was kid friendly. So if anyone else is reading this at 6AM when your toddler has gotten up to early and you are on a trip, consider going to a coffee shop for an hour to get a change of scene and a nice scone.

-Gary