Kids Empire Deerfield — Attraction in Northfield Township

DO NOT BOOK YOUR CHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY HERE. Shame on me for not heeding the previous extremely negative reviews on this particular franchise.

I have had to take a few days to gather the emotional energy to post this review after my absolutely awful experience hosting my daughters’ birthday here.

The short summary is this place is prioritizing short term profits at the expense of customer service, value for money and building a loyal customer base. They’ve just lost the business of myself and everyone attending our party by blatantly ripping people off.

Firstly, NO ONE from Kids empire mentioned anything to me about their company policy that if a parent of a guest decides to bring a sibling to play in the space while their other child attends the party, that they will charge the sibling the party price ($45) instead of general admission ($19). Firstly, this is just ridiculous but secondly, had they told me this upfront I would have warned my guests. Of course many of my guests decided to bring their other children given the space is open to the public and expected to pay $19 for their additional child. We were all shocked when parents started telling me they had to pay $45 just to bring in their second child. This policy is so ridiculous because all you’re actually getting for the party price (besides 6 balloons, plates and a plastic table cloth) is pizza, which obviously was not catered for these siblings given they were not part of final numbers of the party!

The Check in process is an absolute disaster. Despite getting my guests to sign the online waiver ahead of time, a long line of them were stuck at the entrance well over an hour into the party. Because the employee doing check in didn’t ask for names of the kids invited, she initially counted any additional siblings against the 20 guest headcount I had pre-paid for…including, wait for it, a 6 MONTH OLD BABY that one of the moms had with her. That’s right, I was charged $45 for a 6 month old baby who sat in a stroller with his mom while his sister attended the 90 min party.

The absolute worst, most mortifying part though, is that when the paid list of people entering hit 20 (earlier than it should as siblings were being charged for as part of the party), they started charging guests to attend the party without my knowledge! One of the last dads to arrive with his kids paid $90 to get in…$45 for his daughter who was an INVITED GUEST and $45 for his toddler who was not part of the party. No one came to check with me, and when I saw how many guests had been charged I almost passed out - I was running around the building apologizing for how parents had been treated and venmoing people to repay them, instead of being able to spend a single minute watching my girls enjoy their party.

During all this stress, the staff was trying to show me screenshots of the policy and when I said I didn't want to deal with that at that moment, I wanted to focus on getting the guests checked in this staff member became very rude - accused me of berating her and stormed off.

Writing this brings me to tears... I missed my daughters entire party because I was trying to sort out all the chaos caused by the management's inefficiency, poor organization, and nonsensical "policies" that were never communicated to me.

Regarding the cost of the party - firstly its meant to include a cake but they don't have a vendor so give you only $30 off your total price. If anyone knows where you can actually get a decent birthday cake for $30 please let me know. It's also meant to include a "dedicated party coordinator" but no one came to check on us or proactively did anything - I had to keep going to check in to ask for utensils to serve the pizza, to ask for the goodie bags, or for more plates. Huggy the dinosaur is meant to be part of the party as well but he spent 15 min going around every part of the space except our party table, and by the time he arrived the kids had all dispersed.

The management just...

I really don’t like to leave these type of reviews, but after no help from their Corporate Office to get anything resolved I’m left with no other choice.

We had an extremely negative experience hosting our son’s birthday party in early Jan at their Deerfield Location.

1. We had 21 kids show up instead of the 24 that were anticipated. Kids Empire refuses to reimburse for any kids that do not show up to the party (even if it is because of illness) And the cost per kid is already extremely expensive given that it is over $30 per child. Completely ridiculous.

2. We were told by Kids Empire that we would be the only birthday party at that time. When we got there the is was complete chaos with two other birthday parties going on the at the same time. The 3-person staff was completely overwhelmed and there was no one available to attend to our party and also monitor kid’s safety. On top of the that, one do the staff members had two of her own kids with her!

3. We were told we would be getting a snack pack for each child and weren’t allowed to bring any outside food (except for cupcakes) The staff told us at the party that all they were allowed to give were fruit snacks. This was overly embarrassing to our guests, family and friends that we did not have any other snacks and food to provide.

Again, I really do not enjoy leaving these type of reviews and hardly ever take the time to do so. But Kids Empire in Deerfield left me with no other choice. So I strongly advise against having your child’s birthday party at this location until they become more organized and change...

The Deerfield location staff are completely unprofessional, especially the management. My daughter’s birthday party is in 4 days and I went in to confirm everything today. I was in about 6 weeks prio to book the party.. but they didn’t have a cake vendor, pizza vendor or a person to do the birthday dinosaur. (Still don’t have those things) The manager at the time recommended doing the punch card and said I could bring in cupcakes just to sing happy birthday- but I would have to manage the party myself (decorations, singing etc) I was fine with that.

Today, 4 days before the party, the manger Mike told me I couldn’t do that. He also told me I wasn’t allowed to use any of the tables.. unless I book a party in which they don’t have any of the vendors for. The party is on a slow day in the morning when most kids are in school.

This is totally unprofessional and unacceptable. I was fine with purchasing the “snacks and drinks” from them because it was actually available but to pay for items that aren’t available (cake, pizza) doesn’t make sense. To have different managers tell me completely different things and then not honor what the other said- 4 days prior to the party isn’t right…. Especially when I tried to book a true party but none of the pieces of the party are available.

I asked to speak with another manager or to his supervisor and he told me to “go on the website”. He wouldn’t give me anyone’s email or direct contact. He was extremely rude and...