Brothers offering new setup with Just4Kidz activity centre

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This article was published 14/10/2017 (2938 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If there’s one thing Darcy Willey wants the public to know about Just4Kidz, it’s that it’s not PlayTime Brandon.

It’s a pretty much all-new setup.

Although Just4Kidz is located in the same building as PlayTime Brandon was —1608 Park Ave. —and they also specialize in entertainment for children, it’s a new entity.

The previous company shut down on July 1 and the space was promptly gutted.

Willey joined sibling and business partner Doug in banding together a team of people to continue in this gutting and rebuilding during the subsequent few months.

New bouncy castles have joined an inflatable slide and a new play structure in filing out much of the space in time for Friday’s scheduled soft opening.

A glow-in-the-dark miniature putting area is expected to be installed early next week and Willey said that other additions to the collection of activities is expected to follow in order to mix things up from time to time.

While the building’s existing laser tag arena structure has been retained, it has been bolstered by new technology, which Willey said should help make the experience even better than what it was before.

The facility’s on-site restaurant will feature a full array of carnival-style food and themed party rooms that were being renovated on Thursday in the lead-up to their soft opening to resemble the sea, a land of dinosaurs and a medieval kings and queen setting.

It has been a big undertaking, but one that Willey said has been worth it.

He said that the “opportunity was there,” and that it would have been a shame to have seen Brandon lose a kids’ activity space, given there was a place in the local marketplace for a facility of this nature.

His seven-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, has become the new company’s biggest fan from the offset and has spent as much time as possible testing out all of the equipment.

So far, Willey said that her reviews have been favourable.

Born and raised in Brandon, Willey left for Winnipeg during his young adulthood to work as a guard at Stony Mountain Institution for a few years.

Sick of the 9 to 5 workday, he opted instead for self-employment, which is more of a 24-7 kind of deal.

“I’m happy with 24 hours per day, not eight,” Willey said with a chuckle. “I can’t slow down.”

Willey went on to start up a few companies, most recently the Direct Wholesale that took over the former Sears location earlier this year, whose opening marked the one-year anniversary of his opening of Brandon’s Direct Liquidation.

Just4Kidz is a “fun” project, he said, adding that he hopes to see the staff of approximately 12 people welcome youngsters to as impeccably clean a site as possible.

On Thursday, a few employees were seen scrubbing the equipment in preparation for the following day’s soft opening.

For more information about Brandon’s new Just4Kidz, visit their website, just4kidz.com.

While much of the facility is just for kids, as its name implies, Willey said that its laser tag component makes the name a bit misleading, in that it can be for anyone.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB