WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio — While there’s a lot of fun people can have at Adrenaline Monkey in Warrensville Heights, the owners of the indoor amusement park said they are experiencing some issues with getting people to come to their establishment.
Now, they’re coming up with ways to think outside of the box in order to survive.
“I think they just changed their habits. They started to find all the free things to do in Cleveland,” said Adrenaline Monkey Founder and CEO Denise Carkhuff.
A discouraging trend for small entertainment businesses like Adrenaline Monkey is what sparked our visit to speak with Denise Carkhuff at the indoor amusement park.
“I thought in 2021 you know, we’d be thriving. I even wrote a whole post on that. 'Oh, we survived COVID. Now, we’re going to thrive in 2021.' I’m still waiting for the thrive,” Carkhuff said.
We first told you about how Make Believe Family Fun Center in Parma made the tough decision to close due to a Facebook post that said the children’s amusement center is experiencing significant rises in the cost of operational needs and a decline in customer turnout.
RELATED: Make Believe Family Fun Center in Parma closes, customers looking for money
Pam Dean, the General Manager of Adrenaline Monkey, said they, too, are dealing with similar challenges.
“Things have changed a lot since COVID with people going out and doing things as a family,” Dean said.
Now, Dean and Carkhuff say it’s hurting their business because fewer people are coming in, but the costs for necessities like insurance, concessions and workers keep adding up.
“All the costs are up but yet we can’t raise our prices, and then we’re not getting the volume,” Carkhuff said.
You may be wondering: what is Adrenaline Monkey doing to survive?
“What we did in response to COVID, we pivoted in a lot of ways. We focused on programming that was so meaningful to folks that is more of a need than a want,” Carkhuff said.
According to Carkhuff and Dean, this approach attracts more people—especially parents and children—to their business, which helps them not only survive but thrive.
“I have kids myself who just sit with the video games and they’re not active whatsoever half the time, so this is so important for them to get their bodies active and moving,” said Dean.
“Everything we do is really, really good, and anybody who comes here knows that. It’s just getting more people to know that,” Carkhuff said.
Adrenaline Monkey said they will keep finding ways to attract customers to their business.
In the meantime, they said they’re open every day except Tuesday.
