Looking for a fun experience for American Girl fans? Whether you are celebrating a birthday or planning a fun, eventful outing, visiting the American Girl Café and hair salon is an experience that children will enjoy. Check out some tips for your visit!
American Girl Cafe & Hair Salon Tips
From the Northeast to the West, American Girl has store located in 19 different major cities around the country as well as some international locations. For our visit, we went to the Tyson’s Corner, Virginia location near Washington DC. At the store, you can visit the American Girl cafe and hair salon, all at one location!
Reserve your hair salon appointment before the cafe
If you’re visiting both the American Girl doll hair salon and the cafe, reserve the hair appointment first. Your dolls will be able to go to the cafe looking their best! When you get to the cafe, the dolls have special seats and their own beverages. Since you will have plenty of photo opportunities, your dolls should show up with their hair looking beautiful.
Even though it takes about 20 minutes to do the doll’s hair and nails, you can give yourself about an hour in between the hair salon appointment and the cafe reservation. If you have extra time before your reservation time, you can explore the store.
Enjoy the prix fix meal
At the American Girl cafe, order the prix fix meal. With an appetizer and main dish included for $17 (and only $7.50 for kids ages 4 & under), you get to try a good variety with this option. When you’re choosing an appetizer, most of them work for adults and children. For children, the Fancy Fruit Fondue is an adorable option, but might not be enough for children to share.
With our appetizer order of Warm Artichoke-Spinach Dip, Mozzarella Sticks, Onion Rings, and Soft Pretzel Bites, we enjoyed everything we ordered.
Most of the main dishes work for adults and children, but some appeal specifically to younger guests. The Tic Tac Toe pizza went over very well with my daughter, who doesn’t eat peppers, but loved the visual appeal of the pizza.
Some other main dishes we ordered were the Herb Roasted Salmon for my older daughter, the Turkey Club Sandwich for my mother in law, the Bacon Cheddar Burger for my husband, and the Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Caramelized Onions for me. 
Not only did the serving sizes work well for adults but the food was also good. Everything had a nice classic taste that would appeal to children, while also keeping adult visitors in mind with the menu options.
Share the dessert
When it comes to dessert, you really can’t go wrong with any of the selections. If you ordered the Prix Fixe meal, you’ll be fine splitting a dessert. Most of them are gigantic and filled with rich ingredients.
One of our favorites was the Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae. With creamy vanilla ice cream, chocolate brownies, hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, and chocolate sprinkles, it has the perfect mixture of delectable ingredients. Even though you can order a bigger sundae (The Biggest Brownie Sundae Ever), this one is plenty big enough for a few people to share!
One dessert that is adorable for children is the Chocolate Mousse Flowerpot. My children laughed that I was eating dirt, but it was delicious! If we had brought our WellieWishers, they would have really enjoyed this plate.
Those two desserts would have been plenty for us, but we ordered even more! The Delicious Desserts Sampler came with two mini chocolate chip cookies, two chocolate brownie hearts, and a mini vanilla cupcake. Our last two were the Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie Sundae and the Classic Banana Split.
Experience all the store has to offer
When you visit the American Girl store, you can find so much to do at the salon and cafe, but the store itself is a unique experience too. On display are all of the American Girl dolls and many of the larger accessories, such as campers, dogs, and space stations. If you’ve looked through the catalogue for years, it’s a different experience to be able to actually pick things up, hold them, or see how they work.
Whether you have a big spending budget for your visit or are just browsing, there are plenty of neat photo opportunities and play areas. Not only is there a playhouse in the WellieWishers doll section, but you can also get a photo with a life size 2018 Doll of the Year, Luciana Vega. Since my daughter has been very inspired by Luciana’s love of science, it was incredible to be able to see the displays in person.
From the cafe to the salon, the American Girl store experience is one well worth doing if you are an American Girl doll fan! Since we love collecting these dolls, the trip was exciting and memorable.
You also might enjoy reading American Girl Birthday (& Maryellen Doll Giveaway)!
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Let’s Chat!
What do you love most about American Girl dolls? Share in the comments!
Disclosure: I received a free item, but it in no way influenced my opinion.
