The Children’s Piazza, a nonprofit play-café in Peabody, recently celebrated its 10th year in business.
Charae D’Ambra founded The Children’s Piazza — known in short as ‘The Piazza — in February 2014 as a first-time mom with a background as a pediatric nurse practitioner.
D’Ambra, who is now the Director of Mission & Development, said she still works as a pediatric nurse practitioner
The Piazza began as a small play-café in Beverly before moving to its current location at 83 Pine St. in Peabody in February 2018. Since then, it has recently dropped its LLC title and became a nonprofit organization in 2023.
D’Ambra said Becky Abbott, who is now the Executive Director, joined the piazza six years ago when it moved to the Peabody location.
Although she isn’t a mother herself, Abbott said she had attended birthday parties for her friend’s children at the Piazza before joining the team.
D’Ambra and Abbott shared a mutual friend who dealt with postpartum depression and was also having trouble conceiving, D’Ambra said.
“She would call the Piazza her ‘safe haven,’ that she could go to with her toddler when she was having difficulty,” D’Ambra said.
She asked that friend if she knew any carpenters, which was Abbott’s profession at the time.
“Charae hired me to build some shelves. That’s literally how it started,” Abbott said.
“I was really looking for a partner. I needed someone to balance out my skills. There were a lot of skills I was missing, and Becky just seemed like the perfect compliment,” D’Ambra said.
Abbott has used her background as a carpenter to build many of the aspects of the play space.
“Everything we put out there has a very specific purpose into how it’s made, to help a child develop,” she said.
The Children’s Piazza has a play space suited for infants to kindergarten-aged children and a café that serves patrons of all ages.
Abbott and D’Ambra estimate The Children’s Piazza sees more than 30,000 people a year, which combines regulars and first-time patrons, who eventually become regulars, they said.
Children must be accompanied and supervised by an adult when they are in the play space, which D’Ambra and Abbot said creates an environment to have parents, babysitters, and grandparents learning and interacting with each other.
This model connects people who are going through similar situations, whether they are grandparents or first-time parents, D’Ambra and Abbot said.
“It’s hard to kind of explain why this works,” Abbott said. “We let the parents parent, and we don’t get involved in that.”
“Part of what they come here for is to get out of the house, but part of it is also, I think, the kind of hospitality that we offer here,” D’Ambra said.
“Jerry Seinfeld said that taking care of toddlers is like managing a blender without the top,” she added. “Everything is predictably unpredictable… What we provide here is a little bit of sanity, we provide a safe place where parents can breathe a little bit.”
Abbott and D’Ambra said they share a core memory from the Piazza that represents their growth as business partners and the growth of the business.
They shared the story of building the window between the playspace and the café for people to order their food. The Piazza was closed for the day because one of the attached buildings was having its walkway renovated.
After underestimating the thickness of the concrete walls, Abbott and D’Ambra said they were up until 2 a.m. the next morning cleaning the concrete off the ground after hiring a specialist to help finish the job.
D’Ambra shared a customer-oriented memory of being at a birthday party for the two-year-old daughter of a Bosnian refugee.
At first, D’Ambra said she was overwhelmed by the large amount of desserts at the party. After talking with the woman, her mother, and sister, she learned this birthday party was not only a celebration for her daughter, but her own freedom and continuing the line of women in their family.
Abbott shared one of the most meaningful moments since she joined The Piazza — watching her nephew take his first steps at a place she helped build.
“I can’t beat that memory,” she said.
“The problem is, he thinks like he’s an employee,” Abbott added jokingly.
The Piazza has become more of a part of their lives than just their jobs.
D’Ambra, who teaches nurse practitioners students, said they are old enough that she sees her old students coming to The Piazza with their own children.
Abbott said she is constantly stopped at parks with her nephew by parents and guardians who spent parts of their children’s lives — and their own — at The Piazza.
“We were part of each other’s lives for that little chunk of time… and it still matters,” she said.
Part of their mission statement as a nonprofit is to support early childhood development and family health and mental health at an affordable cost.
“We weren’t going to be sustainable as a for-profit business unless we became more expensive. And I didn’t want to become more expensive,” Abbott said.
Abbott and D’Ambra said as the Piazza continues to grow, they hope to reach more members of the community and continue to support development at all stages — from infancy to grandparents.
