Cottage Toys Celebrates Official Grand Opening Ahead Of Victoria Day Long Weekend

The new Cottage Toys in Lakefield celebrated their official grand opening on Thursday.

Surrounded by friends, family, members of Community Futures Peterborough, and The Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, owner Donna Rourke cut the ribbon with her husband Andrew.

“There’s one saying that I absolutely love and keep on my fridge, ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’.” said Rourke. “ This store has been a dream of mine for a long time. This is a vision I set 15 years ago when I purchased this property.”

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Now, 15 years after purchasing, Rourke finally has a brick and mortar store in the heart of Lakefield.

Rourke says she is excited for her store to draw people to Lakefield, and hopes that will benefit the rest of the community.

Cottage Toys is open in Lakefield every day 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

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Cottage Toys Opens New Location In Lakefield Just In Time For Summer

The new Cottage Toys location in Lakefield is officially open for business and is ready to outfit cottage goers and outdoor enthusiasts for the summer.

Photo by Angela O’Grady.

Owner Donna Rork says this new location has been a long time coming.

“I feel like the building is exactly the way I envisioned it 15 years ago when I bought this property,” she said. “So to have this dream of mine actually come true it’s like, pinch me.”

Since she purchased the property, Cottage Toys has been hosting pop up shops on location on long weekends in the summer.

Now, with a permanent location, Rork says she will be able to serve her community even better, with air conditioning being an added bonus.

Rork opened the new location on Saturday, and says the community welcomed her with open arms.

“When we opened the doors on Saturday people flooded in. I got all kinds of presents like wine, plants and flowers - everyone was so excited to see the new building.”

She notes that this addition to Lakefield should help other businesses in the area by drawing shoppers from communities near and far.

“I think it’s a great step for Lakefield,” she said. “Not only will we be hiring more people from the area but we’ll also be creating this destination for shopping that will have really positive spinoffs for businesses in the area. People travel from hours away, Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, people will come from all over because there’s nothing else like this.”

Rork says they will remain open in the winter, and shift to selling different outdoor gear then.

An official grand opening ceremony will be taking place on Thursday.

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Cottage Toys Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony For New Location

The Rork family has dug deep with a groundbreaking ceremony of a new Cottage Toys location in Lakefield at a media conference on Monday.

(left to right) Andrew, Donna and Ethan Rork at the groundbreaking ceremony. Donna opened the sporting goods store in 1989. Photo by David Tuan Bui.

Current and former staff, construction workers and community members attended the ceremony where the owner Donna Rork announced the details of the new building for the aquatic sporting goods store.

Four Points Construction will build the new location and is projected to be completed on May 1 next year. The store will be open all season compared to its Lakefield location — with others in Peterborough and Stoney Lake — which is seasonal.

"It's a dream that I've had for a long time and it's nice to see it come to fruition,” said Rork. “When I woke up this morning and realized this was happening, I was very emotional. I've worked at this a long time, I've pushed, pulled, dragged myself through lots of troubled times in business as everyone does and to get to this point feels really good.”

Additionally, the new location will feature air conditioning/heating, greater storefront space, better outdoor display, a storage basement, higher ceilings, more parking, a cleaner shopping experience and a more technological adaptation to the business according to Rork.

“There are all kinds of new opportunities to really customize the experience with laptops,” said Rork. “You can walk around with a customer and build an order. You can do that on a tablet, walk out the door and we deliver it to their cottage.”

The building will be located behind the Lakefield Restaurant on 37 Concession St. It is the same location where the business started in 1989.

The location is ideal for the store since it is at the heart of cottage country, near the marina and the area has a lot of traffic according to Rork.

A regular customer had spray painted the golden shovel and left it for the business for the groundbreaking ceremony. Photo by David Tuan Bui.

The former windsurfing instructor noted that with the pandemic weakening and restrictions becoming looser that people are eager to go cottaging more often while purchasing recreational goods as part of the getaway.

“There's been so much increase in cottage purchases, boat sales are through the roof and that's an obvious sign that people are going to continue (after) skiing, tubing, stand-up paddleboarding, kayaking and all the fun stuff that we do,” she said.

The pandemic dealt a crushing blow to the business as there were two months of zero income when COVID-19 forced the country into lockdown.

"I cancelled all my orders. I don't know what's going to happen, I'm running out of money and it was really scary," explained Rork. "I was really low on cash because you've gone a whole winter with no-to-little cash flow."

The business saw some of the best sales ever beginning in May last year when they reopened two months after the initial lockdown. Cottage Toys was so successful that it became troubling to manage the surge of orders at several points.

“It was quite overwhelming, we had such a hard time managing the volume and it's all coming in at once,” said Rork. “We’re really grateful for the growth for our business.”

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DBIA Featured Post: Cottage Toys

Known as one of Canada’s top retailers of water sports and surf apparel, Cottage Toys has been delivering top of the line product in and around our city now for 24 years. With its main store located at 180 Charlotte St., owner Donna Rork and her staff live by their slogan that they are “Serious About Fun!”

The store offers exactly what is in its name: cottage toys. From wakeboards and stand up paddle boards to water trampolines and tubes, you’ll find just about everything possible to use to play on the water with. What most people will also know as soon as they walk in the store is that Cottage Toys has an absolutely amazing clothing retail section that carries many of today’s top brand names. Billabong, Quicksilver, Roxy, Gues, and Element are just a few of the brands you will find lining the walls from floor to ceiling.

As the seasons change, you will find so many different clothing options in the shop—from winter coats and toques in the winter to shorts, T-shirts, pants, and dresses in the summer. They also carry many great accessories like watches and sunglasses year round, to go with their incredible swimwear selection that is also always available. The bargain basement is always a big hit, housing lots of out of season product at discounted prices.

Cottage Toys has always been expanding: They first opened in Lakefield in 1989, next in Peterborough the following year and more recently opening 3 years ago in Bancroft and this past summer a shop opened up right on Stoney Lake! Having been in the business for 24 years now has allowed Donna to gain valuable experience and with four locations, she is able to specialize at each of them. One of her goals is to sell what makes sense at each location. So each shop is customized for where it's situated.

Even though many other stores carry the same brands, Donna is able to offer unique products you won’t find in many other places as she orders specific items unlike box stores who order the status quo that you’ll find at every store. She is always looking to get the best value out of her products and stands behind what she sells.

At Cottage Toys, customer service is a top priority and this can be felt as soon as you walk into the stores. Staff is trained to have vision to help customers buy the best product and treat the customer with absolute respect. Donna wants everyone to enjoy coming into the shop and keep coming back!

Cottage Toys has always been happy to be apart of the downtown community in Peterborough and does quite a bit for the city. They have sponsored local sports teams, and donated to the PRHC, James Fund and Hospice Peterborough to name just a few.

They are happy to be taking part in the DBIA Black Friday event and invite you to come in and see what they have to offer. They promise you won’t be disappointed!

For more on Cottage Toys (180 Charlotte St.), go here:
Web: CottageToys.ca
Twitter: @cottaget
Facebook: Facebook.com/cottagetoys‎
Phone:

Peterborough location: (705) 741-2150
Lakefield location: (705) 652-6852
Bancroft location: (613) 332-5013
Stoney Lake location: (705) 652-3000

For more on Downtown Peterborough and the Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA), click here.

—By Aaron Elliott