Laois Offaly family business slashes opening hours to stay afloat

A Laois Offaly business has announced that they are cutting opening hours drastically to "keep our heads above water".

Clown Around in Portarlington, an indoor activity centre owned by local woman Elaine Mullally, will now only open on the weekends and during school holidays.

The Botley Lane based business in operation for 14 years, made the announcement on Friday, January 27. 

"As everyone knows all businesses are financially suffering at the moment, we are continuously looking at how we can keep our heads above water without increasing our prices.

"Fridays have been very quiet for the past 3 months so we have made the decision to close Monday-Friday and become a weekend business, except during school breaks.

"We are happy to commit to keeping our prices the same for February and March. We will open on Friday to facilitate birthday parties. Thanks for all your support it’s much appreciated! Clown Around Play Centre Ltd."

They say that prices will not rise, despite ongoing financial pressure including rising energy costs.

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"Thank you so much to all who support our business! We are freezing our prices going into 2023 so there has never been a better time to book your kids party. Our current prices will be honoured for January 2023 parties booked and deposit paid before the end of December 2022".

Last October, Ms Mullally told a public business meeting in Portarlington held over energy costs, that her electrical bills had quadrupled, from around €250 to almost €1,000.

In December the company described the difficult financial year they had. 

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"Despite energy prices going through the roof in 2022, our food and drink purchases went up by 25%, we are delighted that we have not raised our prices of play or parties during this year. We are also going to continue to offer the same value for money going into January 2023".