This ‘Tiny Town’ just opened on Spring Hill’s Main Street; here’s how it’s connecting kids growing up in KC’s urban sprawl

SPRING HILL, Kansas — Two sister companies on the edge of the Kansas City metro are now offering a scoop of ice cream with a drizzle of imagination on top.

Three years ago, Dale and JoAnn Romano opened Pop’s Sweet Shop on Main Street in downtown Spring Hill, a nostalgic ice cream parlor that also serves up homemade fudge, cannolis, and cotton candy.

In November, the couple launched Nana’s Tiny Town next door — bringing a hands-on, children’s play center to the Kansas community.

“The hope is that they’ll come in, they’ll have ice cream, and they’ll play,” JoAnn Romano said. “That’s why we did really affordable memberships because we wanted them to be able to do all the above and not have to make a choice between one or the other.”

Pop’s — which boasts a second location that opened in 2022 in Old Town Lenexa — became Dale’s retirement passion project, she shared, and now Nana’s fills the same void for JoAnn.

“He figured he wanted to do something happy,” JoAnn Romano continued. “We both have a heart for kids. We’ve always been in service one way or another. We did foster care for years. Our kids are still foster care parents. It’s an overflow of our hearts to love on children.”

When a space initially opened up next door to Pop’s, she said, she asked her two daughters what kind of place would pair well with their existing business — and fill a need in Spring Hill.

“They said, ‘We really need a place for kids to get together and socialize,’” Romano recalled. “Especially since Spring Hill is experiencing that urban sprawl. It’s just all houses and a lot of people are not from around here. So this gives them an opportunity to meet each other.”

With their past experiences in construction and interior design, the Romanos — Long Island natives who moved to Olathe in 1994 to raise their daughters — designed and built a child-sized main street. With its own Pop’s Sweet Shop, a school, a theater, a vet’s office, and a mechanic’s garage, the space aims to inspire play and creativity for kids 6 months to 7 years.

“The need is very obviously there,” she explained. “Technology being introduced so young and so dominant now — not that technology is bad, but an overabundance — they don’t develop brain synapses for critical thinking without imaginative play.”

It’s cool to see the kids gravitate towards their passion, shared Romano, who noted Nana’s Tiny Town is working on its nonprofit designation.

“We’ve got the showman that’s in the theater and they’re doing their song and dance routine,” she continued. “Then we’ve got the little servant-hearted ones that go right here to the diner or the ice cream shop. At the school, they’re the ones that get a group together and they sit them in the chairs in there; they’re the leaders. In the mechanic station, there’s a couple of Little Tikes engines in there that they take apart and put back together. There’s scientific thinking in doing that.”

The space also includes a Bub Hub for babies and a back room with board games and Legos for older kids, she noted.

“I love — first of all — the joy on their faces when they come in and they see it,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Wow, this is so cool.’ Honestly, I think it’s seeing them in their own element.”

But it’s not just about connection for the kids, Romano added.

“I love seeing the moms make new friends,” she said, mentioning that she’s watched adults play board games and knit together at the picnic tables. “The connectivity piece is really amazing to watch with the adults, as well as the kids.”

For open play, Nana’s Tiny Town offers several play pass options, including $10.99 for a day pass and $29.99 for an unlimited-play, annual citizen’s pass. Romano said they are adding enrichment programs, clubs, art days, parent-nights out options, plus birthday party packages with Pop’s Sweet Shop.

“There’s something here for every interest,” she added.