For toddlers, this place is a shoe-off

Our status: two parents and a toddler. Our objective: to keep cool and have a fun date for ourselves and our kid without breaking the bank. It was Sunday morning, and already the thermometer had pushed past 80 degrees. An outdoor playground would have been great because it’s free, but in the summer the sand, slides and swings are as hot as a griddle. We wanted to run around, but we also wanted air-conditioning. And we wanted to try something different from the Kidspace routine.

Since Amy’s Playground opened a couple of months ago, my boyfriend and I had driven by it a gazillion times without stopping, thinking it was just another high-priced South Pasadena kids’ store with the usual assortment of novelty clothes and toys. We were wrong. Just beyond the cash register, past a white picket-fence gate, is a 3,000-square-foot play area with a giant Habitrail-style maze, candy-colored tube slides, a bouncer tent, a miniature playhouse and lots of toys, balls, blocks and miniature cars.

It was, in other words, toddler heaven. But the play area was adult-friendly too. Morcheeba was playing on the stereo, instead of the usual cloying kid stuff. There were non-parent-oriented magazines for us to read and regular-size couches to sit on, not just the floor. And coffee -- that parental prerequisite for optimum morning play -- was also free.

Admission was $8, and only for our kid; parents and caregivers are free. If we’d brought our own socks, we could have saved the extra $2 my son and I had to pay to play in this “shoe-free environment.”

That $10 lasted about two hours and helped us work up an appetite for lunch. We decided against the fruit cups, chips and drinks at Amy’s and brought in sandwiches. While our son and I built castles out of Duplo blocks, my boyfriend headed across the street to the Munch Co. for subs.

The Munch Co. is one of those throwback sandwich shops with red-checkered tablecloths and the ambience of a grandmother’s kitchen. The sandwiches are assembled meticulously, if not especially fast, which is why my kid and I opted to stay and play. When my boyfriend returned, we dined at a picnic table inside Amy’s play area. At noon, the place was closing for a party, so we packed up and headed for the beach. It was the final phase of Operation Cheap Cool Down.

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The tab

Playtime $10

Where: Amy’s Playground, 1115 Mission St., South Pasadena, (626) 799-0304. $8 for kids 2 and older, $6 for 2 and younger; parents free. Plus $1 per person if you don’t bring your own socks.

Lunch $18.65

Where: The Munch Co., 1028 Mission St., South Pasadena, (626) 441-1036.

Total $28.65