“If there is one business that you wouldn’t want to open during a global pandemic, it would be a kids’ play place,” laughed Mike McEwen.
McEwen should know. He’s the owner of the Wiggle Room, an indoor children’s play place located in Crofton, Maryland, about 20 miles east of Washington, D.C. Due to a combination of the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing government-imposed restrictions, McEwen had to close the Wiggle Room just before Christmas.
The 36-year-old said that being a father of four and a stay-at-home father is what inspired him to open a chidren’s play place.
“We were searching for places for our kids to play around here that offered what the Wiggle Room ultimately offered,” McEwen said. “But there weren’t many, so we decided to do it.”
Many play places only schedule specific hours during which parents can bring their children. The Wiggle Room offered a flexible schedule in which parents could bring their children whenever they wanted and stay until closing. It also offered the parents comfortable chairs, free coffee, and refrigerators where they could store lunch and snacks for their children.
McEwen opened the Wiggle Room in August 2017. He said that it struggled at first, but by 2018, business began picking up.
Mike’s wife, Lindsay, works in the defense industry and is the main financial support for their family. However, Mike did well enough in 2019 at the Wiggle Room that he could have supported his family if needed. Indeed, he was doing so well that in April 2019 he added a $70,000 expansion to the Wiggle Room that included a climbing wall and a foam pit for children to jump in.
The beginning of 2020 promised to be even better.
“The first two months of 2020 were 30% better than the first two months of 2019,” McEwen said. “So we were on our way to our best year yet.”
At that point, there was no way he could know that 2020 would turn into the worst year for his business.
The Wiggle Room is one of many small businesses that closed down in the last year. No one is certain how many have closed permanently due to the pandemic, but Karen Kerrigan, president and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, worries that it could end up being in the millions.
“When this first hit in March, it was devastating to small businesses,” Kerrigan said. “Congress should have put together another aid package this summer, before the next surge came in the fall and winter. That didn’t happen, and so a lot of small businesses have gotten caught in this second wave of shutdowns and restrictions.”
The Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey shows that about 4.5% of small businesses expect to close a location in the next six months. That would amount to more than 1.3 million small businesses in the United States.
The first blow for the Wiggle Room came on March 23, when Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ordered all nonessential businesses to shut down. McEwen had closed the Wiggle Room a few days before Hogan issued the order.
The Wiggle Room did receive $21,000 from the federal Paycheck Protection Program in April. However, average monthly expenses for the business, including rent, loan payments, and labor, ranged from $15,000 to $17,000.
“It was supposed to help us with rent and utilities,” McEwen said. “But we also had to use it to keep three of our employees on the payroll.”
Another $130,000 in assistance came in the form of an Economic Injury Disaster Loan from the Small Business Administration.
“That was enough to see us through to December,” McEwen said.
The Wiggle Room opened its doors again in late June after Hogan allowed businesses to reopen on June 19. Businesses like the Wiggle Room were only allowed to operate at 50% capacity.
Making matters worse for McEwen, the school board in Anne Arundel County, where the Wiggle Room is located, decided not to let children return to class until February 2021.
“There is a direct correlation, I think, between us and the schools,” McEwen said. “If the schools are closed, people aren’t going to be comfortable coming to the Wiggle Room. If kids can’t gather in school, a lot of parents probably figured they can’t gather anywhere.”
After reopening in June, the Wiggle Room was earning only about 12% of the revenue it was taking in during the same period in 2019. McEwen said that wasn’t even enough to cover his labor costs.
The final straw came when Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman announced on Dec. 10 that businesses in the county would have to reduce capacity to 25% in response to increasing cases of COVID-19.
“At that point, it wasn’t worth keeping it open,” McEwen said.
The closing of the Wiggle Room leaves the business close to $400,000 in debt.
“It’s stressful,” McEwen said about the debt. “There’s a lot you think about because there is so much money you owe. Well, what are you going to do if one day you can’t pay that back? And that slowly eats away at your mind. It’s always there.”
There is a chance that the Wiggle Room will reopen in about six months. McEwen’s landlord has given him a break on the Wiggle Room’s rent for a few months. What will be crucial is if Anne Arundel County schools reopen in the spring.
But even then, McEwen isn’t sure.
“I don’t think it will bounce back like an elastic band, even with the vaccine,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll get back to normal for at least a year. I think the odds are about 50-50 that we won’t reopen.”
