Where are you from originally and where do you live now?
Emily is originally from the Boston area, although she’s spent time in LA and NYC she now resides in Pelham. Amanda is originally from Oklahoma. She moved to NYC to pursue a career in fashion and now also lives in Pelham Manor.
How many kids do you have and what are their ages?
Amanda has two children, Margot who is almost 6 and Tripp who is 2. Emily has three children, Fiona who is 6, Declan who is 4 and Casey who is 15-months-old. So, there is never a dull moment in our houses to say the least!
What do you love about living in the Sound Shore?
The people! Community is so important to us and a fundamental reason we opened. We love bringing our community together and we feel so lucky to get to hang out with awesome people (big and small) every day. We love how often parents and caregivers tell us their child is asking to come back to play or parents with older children say they wished we were around sooner. It’s really fulfilling to make that kind of impression!
We love the people here too! How do you know each other and how did you end up working together?
After moving to the ‘burbs from NYC we both signed our daughters up for a pre-school program and instantly became great friends (and so did our girls)! When we decided to open Tig & Peach we hardly knew one another but both knew we wanted to open a space to connect with our community and do our part to revive our downtown. We bonded over our desire to be in a safe, beautiful and clean play space that gave us the luxury of easy conversation and less mess, where our kids could flourish with engaging activities and enticing toys that we couldn’t have in our homes. We took a leap of faith in doing it together and have never looked back. The last few years have only made our made our friendship and partnership grow stronger. We are the ying to each others yang and completely balance one another out.
Tell us about Tig & Peach! How did you come up with the name?
Tig is Amanda’s childhood nickname and Peach is Emily’s. We combined our nicknames to keep the fun alive and create a beautifully designed play space with awesome enrichment programming like music classes with puppet shows and instructors that have Broadway voices, whimsical sensory classes, and super silly soccer and superhero classes. We love throwing Instagram-worthy birthday parties on the weekends and also have unique toys, gifts and clothing in our store! We just expanded our space to make room for more programming and classes too! We can’t wait to show you all the new fun we have in store!
What kinds of programs do you offer?
We have partnered with some amazing companies like Juliette and Ella’s Playdate and Fit Soccer Kids out of New York City along with some of our own incredible instructors and classes. We try to find just the right balance between education and entertainment in all of our classes and have created some fresh new programming like OMG! Omph! Move! and Groove which is full of fun, singing and dancing. We have Superhero Olympics, an awesome obstacle course class for your climbers and movers. We also offer more traditional classes like soccer, ballet, yoga, and even a cooking class where we make delicious snacks every week in addition to a sensory class that’s been a huge hit with the younger crowd. We’ve got a class for every 0-5 year old almost every day of the week in addition to our new moms group on Fridays and are holding classes in both Pelham and Rye now.
I see that you also have birthday parties there! Tell us about them!
We do! Our birthday parties are held on weekends afternoons and we definitely know how to throw a party! Our space is beautiful but we take it to the next level with parties. Think balloons and the decor of your choice! Your little one will have the space all to themselves with their besties and you will have a blast not lifting a finger! We also have entertainment add-ons with our class instructors if you want to take it to the next level.
Your space is adorable! Did you design it yourselves?
Thank you and yes! Amanda is passionate about design and took the lead role in creating the look and branding of the space. Emily’s got great taste too so there is definitely a lot of collaboration. We can’t wait to keep bringing the fun and are always thinking of the next cool thing we can show everyone.
How has Tig & Peach evolved since it first opened?
In about a million ways! We opened 6 months before the pandemic so we’ve had to pivot, then pivot again and again. We opened as an awesome children’s play space with a few enrichment classes and a minimal amount of retail but during COVID we had to change how we thought of things a bit. We started private pods, outdoor classes and also started to sell a lot of retail. Now that things are getting back to some sense of normalcy we have evolved all of those aspects of our business (and had 2 babies, too!). We are now offering our year long 2’s and 3’s program, a whole host of classes throughout the week in Pelham and Rye, we have open play 7 days a week and are still selling a lot of awesome toys, gifts and clothes for 0-5 year olds.
What’s your favorite part of owning your own business?
We absolutely LOVE coming to work everyday and seeing little smiling faces. Also, getting to work with great friends and colleagues, empower women and parents, creating a culture that people want to be a part of and strategizing on how to do more of that is absolutely the best part of owning our business!
You both must be so busy! From parenting to owning a business and everything in between. How do you juggle it all?
We were laughing just a few weeks ago because we were playing with Casey (Emily’s youngest) in the play space and we were in the middle of a discussion about our business. One of our customer overheard and said, “Wow, you all seem so calm about it all.” That’s the furthest thing from the truth. There are lots of early morning and late night texts and we are constantly looking at our business plan, reevaluating, and brainstorming new ideas in between pick-ups and drop-offs and dinner time. The truth is, we have a lot of help. It definitely takes a village to do it all and we are always trying to find the right balance between family time and work. It’s definitely not easy but it’s worth it!
Thank you both for taking the time to speak with us! We are so lucky to have such a fun and unique play space in our community!
Interview by Kelly Postiglione. Photos by Larufoto.