When Meghan Huckowsky announced that her Doodle Dogs location in Marda Loop was closing its doors due to construction in the community, little did she know that announcement would explode.

Now 48 hours on from the closure of that location, with interviews with local and national media alike, meetings with politicians, and a flood of comments by community members—both supportive and blaming her for the closure—Huckowsky is, in her own words, media’d out.

But the reality, no matter how people might feel about the closure of the Doodle Dogs location, was that the company is done with Marda Loop for good, regardless of what changes may come in the future.

“You just need to accept failure. I’m like, but I’ve been in business nine years, like, I’m not an idiot. We have clients there. We’ve run data, we’ve run analysis, and people, we do have the clients there that have had to, like, leave and go to other locations,” Huckowsky said.

“So, I think we did all the right things. We had a gorgeous spot, we had a great location. It just, unfortunately, we just were the victim of that construction’s ability to provide safe access and parking.”

The investment into the Martel Block location along 34 Avenue SW was upwards of $300,000. Huckowsky said the initial build out was more than $180,000 for the store location, a $80,000 freezer for fresh dog food, and then a staff member who received benefits and a fair hourly wage while the store was open.

She said that because the location ran at a loss due to a lack of customers, it has affected the ability to invest in the other Doodle Dog locations across the city.

“It eats up cash, because when you’re a small business, you can’t go to the bank and say, Can I have money? Because the banks like, ‘no, we don’t give out loans.’ So, you pay for everything, either with existing lines of credit or with cash. So, we took the risk and we paid mostly cash from just savings. And that sucks, because that’s all gone,” Huckowsky said.

The Martel Block was also the site where the Marda Loop BIA installed trolley bells to drive more customer traffic to the community in 2023.

Huckowsky compared the closure to having to temporarily close their Sirocco Drive location due to a fire in that building located in Signal Hill.

She said the fire was less stressful. They were able to access insurance for that disruption, but this time, Huckowsky said the situation feels out of her control.

“It just feels like it’s falling on deaf ears, and nobody was listening, and it was getting worse. So, we just want to put it behind us. So closing the shop was the only part of this experience that actually felt like we had control,” Huckowsky said.

Meeting with the Mayor

After the news of the location’s closure, Mayor Jyoti Gondek and her office reached out to Huckowsky to talk about the issues facing business owners in Marda Loop.

Speaking earlier in the day, as a mayoral candidate to the Calgary media, Gondek said that there were two things that she wanted to accomplish by talking to businesses.

“I want to have a good conversation with businesses that are expressing difficulty or making decisions to leave. I want to understand what their perspective is, and I think it’s really important in my position to reach out to them and say, you’re valued in our city and what’s happened. What would you have liked to have seen done differently?” Gondek said.

“The other thing is that I want Calgarians to know that Marda Loop is not shut down. Marda Loop businesses are really interested in having people come through their doors. There are amazing retailers down there, there’s restaurants, there’s services that you can only get in Marda Loop. So, I would encourage everyone to get down there, have a look around and go and shop there.”

Huckowsky said that the meeting with Gondek was a positive one, and that it didn’t result in the outcome that she would have liked for other businesses in the area. Huckowsky suggested the city cover BIA fees or waive business licence renewal fees.

“She’s saying all the right things. We all hope for the best. But I also said to her, too, that she was basically saying it’s going to get better. I just said I’m not going to be there,” she said.

She said she was also able to meet with representatives from the City of Calgary and with Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott before the closure.

“I think their job is mostly just to communicate the updates and to provide as much information or bring information back. So I think they’re almost like protected by a layer,” she said.

“I think that the people that are sort of caught on that front line to be the face of the project, are these really sweet, caring people.”

Huckowsky said that she emailed her City of Calgary representative, saying that if the city could have mandated their closure due to construction, they could have received insurance to cover their losses.

“He basically CCed Coun. Walcott, and was like, we don’t shut businesses down. Like, that’s not what we do. We just provide the safest access possible. I’m like, but it’s not, and you’re making it worse,” she said.

Asking for more than words during the election

The message that Huckowsky said she wanted to convey was that businesses in the community need help. Need help with the existing construction going on, and during future planned construction that will happen in the area.

“When we first moved in, we moved in and there was construction that started after we moved in, right in front of our store. But what we knew of construction was not Marda Loop construction. So we were like, ‘oh, they’re just going to do some mild construction.’ And then it just kept going and kept going, and then kept going,” she said.

She said that disincentive for businesses had shown up in the data that Doodle Dogs collects. Before opening the location, they used their online ordering system to show where in the city customers were purchasing from and Marda Loop was one of those hot spots.

“People were usually driving to either our Sirocco Drive location or Bridgeland from Marda Loop, so we’re like, ‘oh, we’ll just come to you. We’ve always wanted to be here,'” Huckowsky said.

That same customer data also drove the decision to close. It’s something Huckowsky said she pushed back on for as long as she could.

“When you’re a business owner like you were, you know that every day that you’re losing money is a day you’ve got to make a decision. So a lot of people were like, ‘well, when did you think about doing this?’ Last week, and my brother’s been hounding me for like, six months. He’s like, we got to close Marda Loop,” she said.

Although Huckowsky said that Doodle Dogs would not be returning to the community, she did say that other businesses needed to have better representation for their operational needs.

She said that message was especially aimed at the councillor candidates who would be vying for a city council seat this year.

“If you’re running in Ward 8 right now, I would love to see them prioritize Marda Loop as their first item. Their new cause needs to be that community. I think they need to put aside their ‘I want to rehouse’ and ‘I want affordable housing,’ or whatever their mission is. I think they need to put it aside, and then they need to focus on Marda Loop,” she said.

“I think that people who are running and people who are voting should really drive that question home. How important is Marda Loop to you within your ward?”