Family-oriented Saskatoon businesses finding it difficult to entice parents and kids to return

Children have been stuck at home for months, but that doesn't mean parents are ready to take them out to different indoor play areas.

Businesses that cater to kids have seen some restrictions lifted, but owners have found many families are still reluctant to resume their usual leisure activities.

Deborah Kies, one of the owners of Saskatoon's Learn & Play Cafe, said they decided to close a few weeks ago after doing a customer survey.

Kies said 70 per cent of her customers weren't comfortable coming back to the coffee shop with their kids because of COVID-19.

Learn and Play ran summer camps, but didn't open up the cafe until September. The customers were few and far between.

"We had days where we had no customers or one or two customers," Kies told Saskatoon Morning host Leisha Grebinski.

"The folks that did come in, unfortunately, they would not spend a lot of money in the cafe portion. They would come and play or our rental groups would come in, but not order anything. Our numbers were just unsustainable."

Aron Cory, co-owner of Clip 'n Climb (an indoor climbing studio for kids), said it has fared a little better.

The business ran camps designed around the new COVID protocols. 

"My wife is a veterinarian and I have a background in animal science, so we're really comfortable with biosecurity," Cory said. 

The camps were full and the business was also able to offer private rentals, but when the kids went back to school in September it saw a massive dropoff.

Cory said the dip was expected, but the business has challenges ahead.

"We are at half-capacity," Cory said. "So even when we are full to our capacity, it's half of what we were last year."

It also has to have time between each group, so there is no overlap and employees can sanitize the play area.

"I think that we've done enough stuff to make people feel more secure when they come to us, but that does have a cost," Cory said.

"It's not as profitable as it was before."

Cory said the business has used federal wage and rent subsidies, as well as grants from the province and local organizations.

"We have a bit of an emergency strategy, so we know that even if we were shut down, we can probably make it back to the summer and just hope for better times," he said.

For Kies, trying to stay open all winter just didn't make economic sense.

"We were kind of going day by day, week by week, and we thought, 'OK, well, let's keep pushing through.' We know October and November when it gets cold, [it's] usually busier," she said.

"But when we did that survey and discovered that that large percentage of people were just not comfortable coming in until the pandemic was over, we just thought, you know, at what point do you continue to push and continue to hemorrhage funds? 

"It was a heartbreaking decision, but the survey results were really what decided it for us." 

Both Kies and Cory said they have been touched by how many other business owners and customers have reached out to them.

"The message I got loud and clear is that everybody's struggling. A lot of people are on the brink," said Kie, adding surviving really depends on the business model and who your customers are.

"I think in our case, because we were targeting kids six and under, that's why there seems to be even more nervousness about coming into a space."

Bigger enterprises like Nutrien Wonderhub have also seen a dramatic decrease in attendance.

"We have also seen a significant drop in the rate of membership sales and private bookings, and we will not be hosting any school visits onsite this year," Wonderhub CEO Amanda McReynolds Doran said in an email. 

McReynolds Doran said the public must continue to support cultural institutions like live music, museum visits and live theatre.

"If we want to be able to return to having shared experiences in cultural spaces once this pandemic subsides, then we need to continue to invest in the culture sector."