On a clear, warm, sunny spring day, Jimmy Mulhern is not one to disillusion parents about the need for them to come to his indoor facility with their children.

Not that he'd mind it if they stopped by the Haymarket Sportsplex to jump around at his business. But as a Little League baseball coach and father of three young kids himself, he understands the importance of enjoying a nice day at a park or a ball field.

"I don't blame people for being outside and playing," he said Monday afternoon, sitting at a table in the lunch room of Jump-N-Jimmy's. "Go play."

When it rains or snows, or is cold or hot, Jump-N-Jimmy's is designed to be an alternative entertainment area. Parents that took their children to the indoor moonbounce and activity location that opened Dec. 7, 2009 repeatedly cited safety as what they liked the most about the pace.

Safety first

"We really like Jump-N-Jimmy's because it gives us an opportunity to play with each other in a safe environment," said Lori Gimelshteyn of Haymarket as she stood next to her 3-year-old son Chris inside an air-inflated rubber-like pen spotted with children's cartoon characters.

As for Chris's reasoning?

"Because I can jump, jump up and down, up and down!" he exclaimed as he bounced on the orange surface.

Gimselshteyn said the two of them have been there almost weekly four out of five months this year. Another set of parents, Mike and Yanira Gordon, drove down from Purcellville at the northern end of Loudoun County on Sunday to take a chance on a place they found in a Google search for indoor play places for toddlers in Northern Virginia so their daughter Ava could have a good time.

"For a toddler, the challenge is to find a play area that's safe," said Yanira. She later added, "We wanted to try something new, something affordable."

Mike mentioned that "It's one of the few places you can feel comfortable letting your children out of your site" because of the interaction they have with the staff.

"You pay a flat fee and (can) be here for hours," he said.

John Mehall of Haymarket echoed those sentiments almost verbatim. He sat on a couch watching a baseball game on the flatscreen television mounted high on the wall of the lounge next to the play area. With his infant daughter Grace sleeping in his arms as she rested on his chest, Mehall talked about how his three sons Jason, Michael and Drew, all aged between 3-7, can "expend energy" in a safe environment.

"It's everything a little boy would want; it's a chance to throw yourself around and not get hurt," he said.

Mehall looked over to see one of the teenage staffers in a neon-green shirt captivating the boys' attention as she blew bubbles next to one of the five inflated bounces. When the boys joined in, he remarked, "There's no way they'd be doing that" outside of there.

Business

However, the atmosphere of the area makes blowing bubbles a fun thing to do, which is the bottom line for Mulhern. The Gainesville resident and his wife Amanda went all-in when they decided to open the business with the premise that it would be a fun and unique destination spot for western Prince William County.

After previous occupant Sam Newman moved his sports training facility to a different part of the sportsplex, Mulhern talked to the building's owner about giving his business a shot.

When banks denied him a business loan, Mulhern said talked (and talked) to his wife and the two eventually agreed to liquidate their retirement savings, hit up family members for cash and came up with the tens of thousands of dollars needed to get the place off the ground.

"The bounces themselves are the big expense," said Mulhern, estimating that the six of them he rotates in cost $30,000. He and his team upgraded the air system there too with new heating and air conditioning.

All of that, and the only debt the facility's name sake owes is to himself. He particularly chastised the local banks who he said, "showed us the door" because they were not loaning to start-ups.

In the event of failure, he said he and Amanda were going to go down swinging.

"If it falls apart, it falls apart, but we're going to have a blast doing it," Mulhern said.

What's ended up being the lifeline for Mulhern and the reason why he's able to reinvest money into his endeavor is word of mouth that spread through the community. While the weekday "open-bounce" sessions still have room to grow, he said the number of birthday parties he's been asked to host exceeded all expectations.

"We had a party booked that was from Springfield. And from that party, we had two more book it," he said.

Aesthetically, the bounces themselves are eye-catching for children as Superman, Dora the Explorer and other animated youth icons can be seen in the prints and shapes. Manager John Sonnenberg reached into his desk, extended his right thumb above his index finger and grabbed a handful of white papers.

"This is our stack of people who do monthly passes," he said, mentioning that the number was in the hundreds.

"When they first started, things went off well. It wasn't like 1,000 people came in off the bat," said the young adult from Bristow. "Now, we have thousands of customers" who have walked through the door.

Sonnenberg said the main challenge he has is to always keep the parents and kids happy.

"(I) never had any kids come out and say, 'That sucked!'" he said, though he did report a few tears from kids who were upset to be leaving. Sonnenberg recalled one mother was a bit skeptical of the place at first, asked for a tour, liked what she saw, and wanted to stay for two hours.

"This is the best place I've ever been to!" she told him afterward.

And, sure enough, "she was back again the next day," he said.

As the parent Mehall explained, being able to entertain his kids for as many hours as they want for the cost of movie theater tickets is a value tough to top locally.

"It's hard to put a price on peace of mind," he said.

More information about Jump-N-Jimmy's can be found at www.jumpnjimmys.com.