A woman looks into the window of the MoFroYo Lounge at 617 East Main Street in Westfield. After only two years of doing business, the frozen yogurt shop, established by Westfield businessman Todd Cieplinski, will be closing. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – After two years in operation, MoFroYo, a Frozen Yogurt Lounge on East Main Street in Westfield established by local businessman Todd Cieplinski, is closing.
The shop, situated in the Little River Plaza on Route 20 heading to West Springfield, enjoyed a location Cieplinski believed would be a goldmine.
“Our philosophy is community-focused and family-friendly, so we’ve tried to do everything we can to make this as appealing as possible to that type of demographic,” he said in an October interview with The Westfield News. “But we haven’t seen the traffic in here over the past year.”
At that time, Cieplinski guaged his business’ chances of weathering the winter at 50 percent and since the lounge opened in August of 2012, the prospect of having to weather a third winter without the benefit of a third summer was something Cieplinski was admittedly nervous about.
A lack of patronage from the Westfield community proved to be frustrating for Cieplinski, who cited the likes of East Longmeadow and Enfield, Connecticut, nearby towns which have multiple successful frozen yogurt shops.
“Where are the people in Westfield?” he said. “That’s the million dollar question and I don’t know if there is any one silver bullet out there. I think it is a mindset.”
Cieplinski said Wednesday that he wants to see the business through to the end of the month and gave his 15 employees a four-week notice.
“My employees have really stepped up. I have a mixture of younger kids and older, college-aged kids,” he said. “They saw the deposit slips and they were wondering what was going on: how can we be making money if we’re only grossing $300 in revenue a night?”
The establishment has several December fundraisers and concerts booked and Cieplinski said that he didn’t want to back out on those events and leave folks in the cold.
“My lawyer and my accountant recommended shutting it down earlier this year, but we wanted to make every effort possible to give it 110 percent,” Cieplinski said. “In the past, we’ve sold a ton of gift certificates in December and I’m really working to let people know to come in and use their gift certificates. I don’t want anyone to feel stuck that they didn’t get enough advance notice.”
Cieplinski acknowledged the challenge he undertook in attempting to take an admittedly seasonal business year-round.
“We were very focused on sticking with frozen yogurt, but others had come to me about adding things like a salad bar during the day or a soup buffet or even homemade sandwiches like paninis,” he said. “It was just late in the ninth inning that suggestions were made and at this time I’m not looking to invest in the business.”
Despite closing shop, Cieplinski hasn’t soured on Westfield and wants to give back to his community until the end of the year.
“Who knows? Maybe someone will come forward and want to invest in this,” he said.
It was a tough decision but we had a lot of fun,” Cieplinski said. “It was a fantastic journey. I’m going to miss it.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said.
