Couple opens Play Street Museum in Winter Garden

Grayson Santiago fell in love with Play Street Museum as soon as he walked in. 

He immediately ran to exhibits and started playing. 

He put on his Winter Garden Fire Rescue coat, fire helmet and started role-playing. 

He even made a friend at the fire station exhibit. They chatted and went down the slide. 

Soon after, Grayson was by the discovery rug with a jungle-explorer costume. 

The smile on Grayson’s face along with his curiosity proved to his mom the museum is worthwhile. 

As first-time visitors, it sure won’t be their last, accomplishing the mission of owners Anthony Perez and Glenda Castellanos, who opened Play Street Museum in Winter Garden as an education museum and imaginative play space for children ages 1 to 8. 

The couple wanted to create a space where their two young daughters could play and learn, while providing other families facing the struggle of finding a safe, educational and interactive play space with a meaningful and thoughtful interactive museum.

After visiting Play Street Museums in Texas, the couple knew it was exactly what the young children of Winter Garden needed. 

After driving 45 minutes multiple times per week to play cafes for their two children to play, Perez and Castellanos realized the lack of play cafes and other interactive and educational entertainment spaces for children in Winter Garden. 

Castellanos said most of those spaces also are not aimed at young children, and instead, a mix between older and younger children, which often creates an overstimulating space for the little ones. 

Because of their realizations, the couple began brainstorming how to bring an interactive play space specifically catered to younger children, such as their 1- and 4-year-old. 

They wanted to create a space where their young daughters could play and learn and provide other families facing the same struggles with a meaningful and thoughtful interactive play space. 

While the process took two years to complete due to busy schedules, this year Perez and Castellanos became the first Florida franchise-owners of Play Street Museum.

Play at their level

As soon as you walk in the door of Play Street Museum, you are greeted with interactive activities, costumes, puppets, pottery to take home and friendly smiles. 

This area is known as the retail area of the museum. 

When families are let in to the play area, children immediately start playing. 

Inside the museum, children can become doctors, Winter Garden firefighters, waste collectors, cafe workers, pet rescuers and more. 

“The kids get to connect to the outside — what they see their parents do, but in their size,” Castellanos said. “When children go into the pet rescue, they are so gentle. That’s what’s going to happen when things are in their scale, their size. … They get to relate what they see outside, inside here (at Play Street Museum).” 

The pet rescue exhibit includes a bearded dragon, which entices curiosity. 

The museum also offers activities through the discovery rug, an interactive rug that changes bimonthly, teaching children about dinosaurs, space and the ocean. 

Perez said not only does it make learning fun but also allows for caregivers and parents to interact with the children in a fun way. 

“It establishes and builds a bond between the child and the parents or caregiver,” Perez said. “It’s an essential bond. … It’s a good setting to have quality time with the kids, while creating a connection between what (the kids are) learning in school and what they’re doing here.” 

The museum offers daily and monthly themes that children can learn from, as well. 

March’s theme is Magnet Madness. It teaches children how magnets attract each other, how they work and why by offering hands-on activities beyond just imaginative play. 

The museum also offers different daily activities such as Music Mondays, Creation Stations, Space Giants and more, ensuring each visit is new, exciting and educational. 

Parents can add canvas painting, dip dye, bracelet- and necklace-making, paint-your-own-pottery and slime lab to each visit for children to explore for an additional price. 

Perez said the museum is similar to a Montessori school, without it being a school.

Perez grew up in Winter Garden and knew right away Play Street Museum should open in the area. 

He coincidentally grew up relatively close to where the museum is located. He attended Lake Whitney Elementary School, SunRidge Middle School and West Orange High School for his freshman year but moved to Miami after that. 

His childhood memories make the space all the more special in his heart, so he decided to give back to the community. 

“It’s really nice to put a business in a place where I had most of childhood,” he said. “To be able to do that knowing it’s a community where I grew up in and thrived and had every single type of resource that I would’ve wanted is nice.” 

The couple said there are many young children who are part of the community and its surrounding areas, and while they struggled to find a safe, educational play space, they did not want other families to go through the same. 

They wanted to become that safe space for the children and the families of West Orange County. 

“It’s all about the kids,” Castellanos said. “I want them to leave with a sense of wanting to come back, not only because it was fun but because they learned something or made a friend.” 

While this is the first museum to open in Florida, the couple already is planning to open two other locations with different themes in the near future.

Overcoming challenges 

Perez and Castellanos are first-time business owners. 

The first challenge the couple came across was finding a location that was appropriate for the museum. 

The site Play Street Museum sits on is new, with some storefronts still empty waiting for their first tenants. 

Because of the uncertainty of businesses that would surround the museum, they didn’t know whether to look somewhere else or go for it. 

After realizing how reachable the location is from Winter Garden, Windermere, Ocoee and Horizon West, the couple decided to go ahead and open at 12107 Stoneybrook West Parkway, Suite 104, Winter Garden. 

Castellanos said the biggest challenge was figuring out what Florida’s market is like. 

Because they are the first owners of a Play Street Museum in Florida, there is no data to follow, no data telling them what enhances the educational system in the state, what toys are selling the most or what are children’s interests. 

To battle this specific challenge, Castellanos said she consistently speaks with parents and guardians to know what their children’s favorite activities are, what the kids are talking about and she constantly checks what is being sold in the retail area.  

“We’re learning as we go,” Perez added. 

For them, it’s more than just being a profitable business but being a safe and educational place that parents and guardians can take their children and take something away from it. It’s not about keeping the doors open but being a place of value to the community. 

Hearing parents’ positive feedback and watching children light up as they explore the space is what makes them keep going, all while working full-time jobs and taking care of two young children. 

Courtesy Photo