Here is the transcribed text with speaker identification and timestamps. [00:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: ready to go. All right. Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome. Um I'm Mayor Myron Bailey and it's my pleasure to welcome everybody to the little village. And some people might go little village, what is that? Right? And we're going to talk about that a little bit. Uh but uh it is a lot of people in Cottage Grove remember this place because uh it where we're talking about in Cottage Grove right now is what used to be Lost Margaritas. But I can assure you when you look around this building, this is not Los Margaritas anymore. It's really, really awesome. And so I want to mention our owners, Lauren and Ryan Fitz, are from the city of Cottage Grove. And I do remember talking to uh well specifically you. I think I don't know if I spoke with your husband, but uh the fact that you were looking for a place to locate and originally I think you were talking about locating in Woodbury and we said, "Now come on over to Cotch Grove. We can get you over to Cotch Grove here." And so we're pretty excited to uh have you uh a local citizen open a business here in Cottage Grove. [01:15] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Um I should mention they've been open for about 3 months now. Some little details here. Uh they did their soft opening on February 14th. Uh and and just so everybody knows as you look around this place and I'm sure there'll be some video of that coming out. Uh the play space here is geared towards children of uh you say zero uh to six six years old. Uh and it's it's more than just a child care type facility. It's also a place for um parents to kind of come together as a community and uh to partner and promote other small businesses. Matter of fact, it was pretty awesome when I was walking in up there. There was some really neat toys and some clothing and things that you have up in the front there. And so I'd encourage you whether you're coming in here to check out the place here and uh bring your kids or grandkids to uh to play uh enjoy something to drink, something to eat up front, which is also something unique for this place. And then you can also check out some of the the items that they have for sale here that look like they're unique. At least they did to me. [02:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Um they did mention here that uh they have open play hours uh throughout the day. And I'll think I'll turn that over to one of you to talk a little bit about that. Uh and of course um the adults and child wranglers 10 and plus are always free. I think that's funny that adults are free for a change versus the other way around. Uh and they like to make it make it easy for us grandparents too to be able to bring the grandkids here. supposed to be kind of cool. Uh they do have some unique things in here. When you take a look around the around the room, they have what's called the imaginarium space, which is like a chalkboard room. And I'm pointing even though you probably can't see it while I'm doing it on TV or on the cable here. Uh but it's pretty neat in here. They got like clouds that are lights. It's really really kind of amazing in there. And that that um that room actually rotates. So it right now it looks like it's kind of a farmer's theme in there. Uh and then they change that on a periodic basis. [03:45] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Um, I should also mention that they can rent you can rent this place out uh for birthday parties, bridal shower, uh, baby baby showers. Bridal showers are supposed to, right? What the heck? Um, and then they also have like a room where you can do crafts, which is going to be kind of neat for the kids, too. Um, they do have an early bird I better make sure I make this uh point. They have an early bird special this summer that includes a free regular size cafe drink with regular admission between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. Uh, and happy hour is the last hour of the day where play is just $6. So, we'll talk maybe a little bit about that here. Uh, their grand opening celebration, so we're here doing the ribbon cutting to make this official. Uh, but their grand opening celebration is this coming Saturday, June, uh, June 24th. uh they're going to have a tattoo booth, uh face painting, craft station, partnering with some of the vendors, and then instead of me giving out this long, uh comment about uh the website, I'm going to actually turn it over to you. [05:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: So, uh before I do turn it over to Ryan here, uh to maybe start some of the conversations off, I do want to just say thank you. Uh thank you for once again for investing in our community. Um you know, we do hear I do hear a lot, we were kind of joking about that a little bit earlier about the mayor gets tagged on everything on social media, right? And I do hear a lot about uh from our citizens that say they want locallyowned businesses and this is exactly what we're talking about this type of business and and so I just want to say thank you for investing in our community. I'm glad we were able to find you a home uh here in Cottage Grove. Now I would ask everybody that's watching this and listening to my voice uh sees this information out on social media or on the cable access channel um please support them. Uh this is an important thing. uh we can attract a lot of businesses into our community, but the fact of the matter is if we don't support these businesses, uh it all we do is continue to fill empty spaces, but that's not going to happen here. [06:15] **Ryan Fitz**: We hope not. That is right. [06:17] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: No, it's not going to happen here. So, I think what I'll do is I'm going to turn over to Ryan and maybe uh have you share a little bit about the place here, maybe that ident maybe what some of the costs are, uh true open hours, and uh maybe a website and a phone number. [06:30] **Ryan Fitz**: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming and thank every everybody for coming and uh officially starting the opening of the space for us. Do you want to be up here? Okay. Um we value creativity and imagination and we've tried to create a space that uh lets children do what children do and just run around and explore and create and imagine in their own little worlds. Um and we're also here for the parents to give them help and support and coffee. Um and yeah the so right now our summer hours are going on. Uh we have workshops going on Mondays and Tuesdays and we have open play Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we're open 9 to 3. Uh open a little later on Wednesday till 5:00 right now. Um during Saturday mornings we're Saturday open play from 9 to noon and then we're private parties basically the rest of the weekend. [07:45] **Lauren Fitz**: Yeah. So, Saturday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sundays are private parties, like you said, for birthdays, for anything you want to celebrate with your families. Um, and we do three-hour rentals, which is a little different, but yeah, you can rent the whole space and bring your whole family. Um, just hang out, bring in your own food. It's always a good time. And the cafe is open for coffee. [08:10] **Ryan Fitz**: There you go. I think. And then yeah, just like our littles and everybody's littles, we're always growing and changing and we're excited to grow with Cottage Grove as it continues to evolve and and we hope to be a big part of that community. Um we think it's going to be a fun adventure and we invite everybody to come join with us in it. [08:30] **Lauren Fitz**: Yes. Especially on Saturday, we're having our grand opening celebration 10 to 3 on the 24th. Um, so we'll, like you said, mayor, um, we'll have little tattoo booths, face painting, always bubbles outside. Um, a lot of local partner vendors, people we work with on our birthday parties or that we serve in our cafe. We try to partner with as many other local small businesses as we can. Um, so it's going to be a great time. Um, so go to our website, the littlevillagemn.com, and you'll see it right there on the homepage, and it'll take you to the celebration page. [09:05] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: So, little villagemn.com. [09:07] **Lauren Fitz**: The little villagemn.com. [09:09] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: The little villagemn.com. And then if they have uh if somebody has a question uh versus going to the website, do you have a phone number? [09:15] **Lauren Fitz**: Yep. Uh uh 651-203-7993. [09:18] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: And I'm assuming um whether it's online or a phone call if somebody wants to rent uh rent it for a birthday party or something going on here. [09:25] **Lauren Fitz**: Uh both ways. Yep, absolutely. We have our online calendar. You can easily rent it. It's just a little deposit and you can do it all online or call us and we'll help you get set up. [09:35] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Fantastic. Well, maybe what I'll do is turn it over to our chamber uh uh Lori from the Chamber of Commerce here for the local area Cottage Grove Chamber. Uh it looks like you have a new member. [09:48] **Lori (Chamber of Commerce)**: Sure. So, on behalf of the Cottage Grove area Chamber of Commerce, I want to um present you with your new member plaque and welcome you to the chamber. [10:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: So, maybe we'll hand that over there. All right. So, now comes the fun part. Oh, and I think you're going to Who's going to help with it here? You going to do the cutting? Are you going to help? The key is to snap it hard. No. No. She's going to be bashful. Let's see. We want dad here, too. You want me to hold that? Yeah. I can hold. You got her. Let's do Let's do a stage photo where everybody's looking just in case because usually what ends up happening is you miss We're using the scissors and not the camera. Safety. Okay. All right. All right. So, everyone do the countdown. 3 2 1 and then I'll All right. You ready? Just me now. Three two one. There we go. We're official. Congratulations. [Music] Yes. Please take those official. They keep the ribbon chop.