A CHILDREN’S play cafe in a Winchester shopping centre has closed its doors for good - after less than a year in business.
TotCity Winchester, in the Brooks Shopping Centre, has closed and the unit is currently locked and boarded up, with a sign in the window saying “Dear Customers. Due to operation issues, we won’t be able to open TotCity this weekend.
“We apologise for the inconvenience we have caused you.”
TotCity Winchester opened in August last year and offered a play area for young children to explore as well as a cafe and children's birthday parties.
The business has branches across the south of England, including in Andover, Basingstoke and Salisbury.
However, Leon Li, who owns TotCity with his wife Melissa, has confirmed that only the Winchester branch is affected - and he said that it has closed for good due to financial difficulties and that it will not reopen.
He said: “It was due to the challenging time with the economy. It wasn’t financially viable to keep the place open, it’s been very challenging.
“There was plenty of support, but there wasn’t enough for us to stay open.”
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Mr Li, who is from Stockbridge, continued: “We did our best; Winchester had never had anything like that. People said ‘Come to Winchester’, so we came to Winchester but we couldn’t survive.
“It just didn’t work out financially and it’s an expensive city to be in. We did our best, we wanted to provide something to the community, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Thank you to everyone for the support and keep supporting TotCity Andover, Basingstoke and Salisbury.”
The business opened in a unit next to HMV and CGC Emporium, opposite Primark, in a unit formerly occupied by sports brand The Body Solution Wear, which closed in June 2022 and moved online after only 10 months in the centre.
A spokesman for the Brooks Shopping Centre said they had taken the unit back.
He said: “It's a shame to see them go, but we're taking back possession and we'll aim to get another tenant in there as soon as we can.”
The shopping centre still has a free soft play area for children on the ground floor.
Currently, there are three other empty units in the centre - the unit previously occupied by New Look, the unit occupied by Ballet Pointe, which has now moved downstairs, and the unit occupied by the free bookshop on the lower level.
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