Tim Harty, The Business Times

Jennifer Montoya’s excitement to finally reopen her children’s playhouse in Grand Junction, which she did on May 24 with Jennies Playhouse & Jump Zone, was tempered by an equal and opposite emotion: fear.

Montoya said it had been 15 months since she had to close her business inside Mesa Mall in February 2024, because the mall’s corporate owners decided the space where Jennies Playhouse resided for nearly five years would be better served by a retail store, Five Below.

And the road back was much longer than expected and filled with setbacks and frustration, which she detailed on Facebook throughout the search for a new home. Suffice it to say: It was far from child’s play.

So, as Opening Day approached with only minimal notification to the public about her new location at 2830 North Ave., Montoya said she feared the worst.

“It just took so long,” she said. “So, when we actually were able to finally reopen, there was so much fear, because I only gave one, three-day notice that I was doing a grand opening. I wasn’t for sure how many people were going to show up. And then you have the fear of: You put so much time, effort, love, sweat, blood and tears into this, and what if people come in and they just look around and are like, ‘Wow, that’s it?’ So there was a lot of fear as to what others, I guess, how they would perceive it.

“And it was emotional that day we had the grand opening, because at 10 a.m., when we opened, I mean, people just started flooding in, and so many familiar faces, and just so many congratulations, and ‘we’re so happy you’re back and so happy you stuck through it.’

“And it was … yeah, I wanted to cry.”

To be clear, she meant tears of joy.

What Montoya forgot to balance her fear with was remembrance of how much people loved her previous business. Because they loved it. And she did know that.

“For a lot of parents, this is a special place where they can bring their kids,” Montoya said. “I mean, there were so many families that told me how every time they’d go into the mall, their kid would be like, ‘I want to go to the playhouse. I want to go over to the jump zone,’ because people knew I was a jump zone.”

The ability to jump around remains. There are bounce houses and slides, including an 18-foot slide.

“That’s been pretty popular,” Montoya said on Day 7 of Jennies Playhouse being open. “Kids love slides.”

She admits she was worried about the size of the location, which sits at the east end of Eastgate Shopping Center, where CarpetLand used to reside. The space is about 1,000 square feet larger than the mall location was, and Montoya wondered and worried about how she would fill it.

She figured it out.

“We have four birthday-party sections now instead of only two,” Montoya said. “We have expanded on pretend play. We have 10 unique different play areas.”

Montoya’s husband, Rubel Montoya, built the playhouses, which have themes such as a grocery store, health center, ice cream shop, home, backyard area, etc.

The most common ages of children at Jennies Playhouse are 2 to 5 years old, but they can be as young as 1 or as old as 12. And all of them must wear socks.

With mostly toddlers/pre-schoolers populating the place, Montoya said imaginative play is her business’s focus, and that’s why it’s located at the front of the business space, greeting people when they enter.

“The imagination is such a powerful tool, and it’s so crucial for development, for growth of a child,” Montoya said. “Here, kids can come in as an only child, and there’s always other kids to play with. And because of the pretend play and the way it’s set up, they have to socialize with each other, and then they start playing with each other, and they start making new little friends. And so they just learn so much. They learn about sharing and socializing and just using their imagination.”

It is clear in Montoya’s eyes and voice as she speaks about her business that it means the world to her to be able to provide it.

“I just have a passion for children,” she said. “I mean, truthfully, I would rather have a conversation with a child than with an adult. Children are so innocent, and they are being developed. … Everything that’s been instilled in them their entire life, it’s still so brand new, and they’re at that point where they can actually learn. And if you can plant a seed in a child’s brain, just a seed, and they can make it grow throughout their life, then you have accomplished something.”

It means so much to her now, because imaginative play meant so much to Montoya as a child. She said it literally saved her life.

“I had a rough childhood growing up, and my imagination got me through, like, all the tough times,” she said. “It was my imagination of possibilities and just kind of going into my own head and just making a better situation in my head, and it got me through everything.”

The overarching lesson she wants to impart is that the mind is such a powerful tool, and imaginative play helps develop it. Watching television is no substitute.

“You need to learn to harness it and to really just allow it to grow and blossom,” she said. “And so that’s one thing that I really hope to do here is that.

“And it’s, you know, it’s not like a school where we sit down and teach or anything like that. The kids just go and play on their own. But just to be in those situations, in the little pretend playhouses, and to go through with their imagination, you know, hopefully it just kind of sparks that.”

Jennies Playhouse & Jump Zone is now open at 2830 North Ave. in the Eastgate Shopping Center.

For more information such as admission rates and hours of operation, visit the website, www.jenniesplayhouse.com, or facebook, www.facebook.com/jumpzonegj.

To contact Jennies Playhouse, call 970-261-9575 or email Jumpzonegj@gmail.com.