Winnipeggers to the rescue

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/08/2022 (1312 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I wish I never opened this store,” Katrina Tessier began the status message for her business Scout Coffee + Tea on the morning of Aug. 23.

“Instagram is full of highlights, and I usually try to keep it positive, but today is calling for some real talk. The last couple (of) months have been really hard.”

The post, which showed a picture of a building with a yellow sign with the Scout logo that said “Opening fall 2021” went on to talk about the setbacks the business owner has faced since opening a second location.

It was a hole, she described, that was becoming too deep. Her words were vulnerable and real.

“I don’t know if I would have had my rent for next month,” she said, describing how she felt when she wrote the post. “What it was is that I had paid my staff that day and I had a couple hundred bucks left in my bank and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I will make enough money next week to have rent for two stores.’”

The family-owned coffee joint has been in business at 859 Portage Ave. since December 2017.

The 1199 Rothesay St. location opened in March. It’s a special place for parents and their kids because unlike most coffee shops, this one has a play area and a place, at no extra cost to customers, that caters to (but not limited to) preschool-aged children. It has space for birthday party rentals, with the option of using a bouncy castle, and special events.

There was a lot of emotion mounting for Tessier, who questioned whether opening the new location was a mistake. After signing the lease last June, she was scheduled to open in September, leading into the business’ busiest season — October through December. However, from the start she was hit with delays and setbacks involving permits and contractor issues. She had to open six months later than planned.

“We make our money in the fall and winter months and usually from May long to September long are our slow months, with July being our slowest month of the year,” she said.

Since then, Tessier said, so many things have gone wrong. On the morning she wrote that post, pressure was mounting.

“It was a kind of now and never, (I’ve got to) figure it out. I just kind of put everything out there and hoped there’d be a safety net to catch me somewhere,” she said. “That post definitely made a difference. That’s one thing that I’d like to talk about, you know, like how Winnipeg showed up.”

Two days after she hit send on the post it had more than 11,000 views and 1,000 shares. People did come in to play, and they booked birthday parties, too. In a matter of days, the situation went from dire to manageable, all because people in this city stepped up to support one of our own.

She said posting that message was the right thing to do.

“This is one of the things that I’ve heard from other people making that post, is that they would much rather see something like that than the business you like just being like, ‘OK, bye, we’re closed,’” she said.

“You’ll see these posts that are so abrupt, and you maybe would have come and support if you knew that they needed that help. People feel pretty heartbroken when a place they like closes.”

Tessier is grateful for the outpouring of support Scout Coffee + Tea has received. She said she really appreciates people coming out and sharing the post.

“It made a huge difference for us,” she said. “People have turned out, and that’s one thing, when people put that call out and they need help, Winnipeggers are there for sure. It made me proud to have a business in Winnipeg — that people would go out of their way to help a business in need.”

Shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter @ShelleyAcook