Little Treehouse Cafe: A Meal In Review

Photo by Flickr user Sebastion Mary

For families.

We cannot stress this enough.

The Little Treehouse Café is great for families.

Families. Only families.

Why else would you want to go to a restaurant with a slide?

The play area is hands-down fantastic. The best we have ever seen. With baskets of high-quality toys, Melissa and Doug puzzles around every corner, play kitchens, and train sets, the Treehouse Café is fun for everyone. My daughter, a rather curious and slammy kind of nine-month-old, flipped over the dozens of wooden animals—especially a certain walrus who met an unfortunate end when she threw him over the play table's edge. The play space is big enough to let little ones burn off energy, but small enough to keep an eye on your children at all times. Another great thing: the playroom is enclosed and separated from the exit by a latched gate so the chances of your little one taking off on their own is next to none.

Honestly, with a play area this great, they don't even need to serve food at the Treehouse Café. They could serve pieces of cardboard cut out in the shape of food and people would still come. However, the Treehouse Café takes their clients' palates seriously. Offering up some truly yummy and fairly sophisticated fare, Treehouse doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, just spruce it up a bit.

Focusing mainly on crowd-pleasing dishes (think paninis and pizzas) this small bistro elevates "family dining" to an interesting new place. Miles ahead of grease traps like Chuck E. Cheese's and Applebee's, Treehouse Café doesn't just look to throw a ton of crap into your gullet. French fries aren't an option, not even on the kids' menu. Instead, sides of baby carrots and ranch dip, applesauce, or Pirate Booty reign supreme. There are also vegan options on the kids' and adults' menu for those with dietary restriction or moral compasses.

We do not have a moral compass, so when it came time for us to order, we chose the appetizer that kills as many pigs as possible: the antipasto plate. With prosciutto, sopressata, and rosemary ham, we ate so much pork it was probably illegal. There was also a too-small bowl of some delicious olive tapenade and a smattering of roasted red peppers, which my daughter quickly inhaled and then cried when she realized she'd finished them all. The only downfall on the plate was the bread. Four slices of completely forgettable, almost-stale country bread. Completely blah.

For dinner we ordered the grilled Claudio panini with mozzarella, tomato, basil, extra-virgin olive oil, and sweet balsamic, along with the Florentine pizza, made up of spinach, fontina, red onion, grana and herb oil, all on a crazy thin crust. The bread on the mozzarella sandwich was amazing. Soft and chewy, it was a delicious revelation and made the thin, dry slices that came with the antipasto plate all the more disappointing. The salad that came with the Panini was fine, arugeulaa with lemon dressing. It tasted just like arugula and lemons. Everyone loved the Florentine pizza, including the baby. (She ate three pieces.)

Now, here's where it gets really good. Dessert. With a bevy of choices, including a make-your-own-sundae option, Treehouse Café gets two huge thumbs up. You know what? Two thumbs isn't enough. What's better than two thumbs? Eight fingers? The Treehouse's dessert menu gets eight fingers, with the highlight being the S'mores sundae. The graham cracker ice cream comes from a local dairy and is "I-don't-care-if-I-ever-fit-into-my-size-four-jeans-again" good. The fudge sauce is poem-worthy and the coffee not so bad.

All in all, the Treehouse makes us happy. With fun plates and delightful wait staff, I can't tell you what a relief it was to find a place where my husband and I could relax and my daughter could throw things and draw a million angry glares from surrounding tables. The Treehouse Café is the best of all possible worlds: quality food, healthy options, family access. For a complete menu or the skinny on special events, visit their website for more information.