The Safari Run story so far.
Safari Run was founded in 2006 in San Mateo, California, by Jodi and Rob Eichensehr - two parents who saw the same problem every weekend. Indoor play spaces where everyone was playing together, none of it private. Sometimes not very clean. And most of the ones they visited felt tired. They wanted a jungle where a family could book the space to themselves, where the play structure was spotless, and where kids could actually burn energy without their parents worrying about any of it.
Plano, Texas was Safari Run's first franchised location, proving that the model traveled outside California. Sunnyvale was later converted to a franchise, and in 2026 - on Safari Run's twentieth year - Jodi and Rob sold the original San Mateo store to a franchise owner-operator so they could focus on Safari Run corporate: opening new locations, building the franchise pipeline, and growing the brand.
20 years in, Safari Run runs indoor jungles across California and Texas, serves 500,000+ families, and remains rooted in the same idea: clean play, wildly fun parties, and a space parents actually enjoy dropping into. The brand's mission is unchanged - spotlessly clean, wildly fun, made for families. Jodi and Rob remain the family owners of Safari Run corporate, headquartered in Burlingame, California, and are currently accepting franchise applications for new markets.