Zoila Leon at the Play Cafe on Lee Highway. Click to enlarge all our photos.
photo by Christina Siebold
The darkened windows and strip mall surroundings of Chattanooga’s newest internet café and gaming center hide the very hip interior that keeps middle-school students and middle-aged professionals streaming through the tinted front doors.
Play Café opened six weeks ago, and co-owner Zoila Leon says that even in a time when many families have access to the internet at home or at work, the internet café and gaming center brings a new dimension to the online and computer game experience.
“Most kids play computer games in their rooms by themselves. All of our computers are linked which allows the kids to play each other here. It gets them out of their rooms and gives them some social interaction in a safe environment,” Zoila says.
The main room of the café holds 20 stations with state of the art computers. Smaller rooms off of the computer center house three PlayStation2 systems, eight X Boxes and one Game Cube. The entire café is lit with black lights and colorful lamps, two sofas line the front wall providing seating for parents or friends not ready to get in the game.
The café offers snacks along with tea, coffee and soft drinks, including the highly-caffeinated varieties preferred by “gamers” - the truly serious computer game aficionados. Snacks and beverages are enjoyed both at the snack bar and at the computer stations - a luxury most kids aren’t allowed at home.
“We want this to be a fun, safe place for parents to leave their kids,” Zoila says. “I remember dropping my son off at the skating rink when he was younger, but one day there was a big fight and the police had to come down. There aren’t many safe places for kids anymore.”
The walls of the café display black light pictures and three patriotic prints with quotes from Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy - a tribute, Zoila says, to the country that gave her Cuban immigrant family so many opportunities.
“Freedom is very important to me. Being born in a communist country, hearing people say ‘Bill Clinton is a jerk’ or ‘George Bush is terrible’ is still amazing to me. In Cuba, you get thrown in jail or shot for that.”
Born in Cuba, Zoila left at the age of seven along with her two-year-old brother and parents and their one suitcase, and flew to Spain, where they knew no one. The embargo had ended all direct flights to the United States, so the Leons lived in Spain for 18 months before landing at JFK airport in New York City on December 20, 1968.
Her family settled a few miles away in New Jersey and her father worked two shifts at a local pizza factory, her mother at a shoe factory so the family could repay the $10,000 they borrowed from an uncle to leave Cuba. The family paid the debt in full in one year.
“I have wonderful parents who worked so hard,” Zoila says. “We never took a penny from the government.”
Zoila carried on the family’s work ethic when she left New Jersey to attend college at Southern University where she earned her nursing degree while working four jobs to pay her way through school. Her brother soon followed her to the Scenic City and earned an engineering degree at UTC. The two are now business partners at Play Café.
“I would die for this country,” Zoila says emphatically. “They have given me everything I have.”
The only sign of her former homeland in Play Café is a tiny Cuban flag hanging from the soft drink cooler Zoila serves beverages from every day.
After 23 years in nursing, Zoila says she is enjoying her new business venture. Play Café is truly family owned and operated - Zoila is joined by her brother, husband, daughter and nephew in the daily operation of the café.
“Our family worked very hard on this business. We did everything ourselves - it was a real family project.”
A family project that Zoila hopes many Chattanooga families will come to appreciate.
“We’ve made a safe place where adults and children can come together and bridge the generation gap,” she says. “It’s a positive experience for everyone.”
Play Cafe is at 700 Lee Highway, Suite 200, in the shopping center at the corner of Lee Highway and Shallowford Road.