The idea started the way a lot of good Memphis ideas do: over a fence, between neighbors, on evenings when the kids needed to burn off energy and the adults needed to sit down. Andrew Mathewes had been circling the idea of a real gathering place for Memphis families; neighbor Lindsey Shanmugasundaram, a former preschool teacher, kept adding ideas until Andrew asked her to build it with him.

Stomping Grounds takes over the former Railgarten site at Cooper and Central and turns it into an indoor-outdoor venue built for the whole family: a sensory play area, an art room with The Art Project, climbing structures, a tap wall pouring coffee and craft soda alongside wine and beer, and a flat membership covering the whole household.

Lindsey’s title, Chief Play Officer, sounds like a joke until you see how seriously she takes it. “It is play for kids,” she says, “but it is also care for parents.” Two neighbors noticed a gap in their own Memphis lives and built the fix themselves. That’s the soul this campaign keeps finding all over the city.