WEGMANS EXPANDS PLAY AREA FOR 'W KIDS'

RICHARD TURCSIK

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Wegmans Food Markets here has expanded its employee-supervised Pirates Cove child care center to five stores and renamed it the W Kids play area.

Jo Natale, a spokeswoman for Wegmans, declined to comment on W Kids except to confirm that it does exist in a handful of stores.

"We opened an in-store child care department in our [Rochester] Eastway store a few years ago called Pirates Cove. It is still operated as Pirates Cove and is still open as Pirates Cove there. [W Kids] is really just a new name and a new look, but the same concept," she said.

But a source close to the company told SN that while W Kids is modeled after Pirates Cove, the new play centers take child care "to a different level," with more activities and games for the children.

In addition to the Pirates Cove in the Eastway store, W Kids centers are operating in Wegmans Wilkes-Barre and Erie, Pa., stores, and in the Ridgemont (Rochester) and Lawson Road, Buffalo, stores.

"W Kids is just a real nice area for kids. They have CD-ROMs in there, along with Space Mazes and big foam toys to play with," the source said.

W Kids play centers cover roughly 400 square feet. Each W Kids handles an average of 500 children between the ages of 3 and 8 each week, he said.