The not so Enjoy Centre

Anyone that knows me knows that I love gardening and all things plants and nature.  One of my biggest pleasures is going to a lovely garden centre in the spring.  They can be big, small, formal or casual, I don't care as long as they have plants.  So I was happy that we lived just a 5 min drive from the beautiful Holes Greenhouse in St. Albert.  This place was so awesome, beautiful annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs.  I bought two beautiful fountains there and almost every shade perennial they sell.  Every fall I would get myself and my mom some big mums to put outside and add color until the snowballs fell.

So when I heard that the Hole family was building a new facility, I was beyond excited.  Not that I wanted the old one to go, but I could only imagine how amazing it could be with more land and all the knowledge and money they had to put into a new place.  I followed the progress faithfully online and even said that someday when I retire from IT I would love to work there. 

Well I take it back.  I have gone to the new facility since it opened, numerous times.  I have honestly tried to love it, I would even like to like it.  I keep making excuses that maybe they are still working on this or that, or maybe they just got in a bad batch of plants this year.  But I am officially bummed.

Yesterday I went out with my friend T and we had a nice day.  On the way home I thought I would go into the Enjoy Centre to walk around and put the cherry on the top of the day.  Well I wish I hadn't.  It just distresses me to see such a wasted opportunity.  This giant behemoth of a building that offers no life, no happiness and certainly no Joy.  Every aspect of this facility has something that picks my ass.  I didn't want to say this out loud as I feel disloyal to Lois Hole who had such a wonderful vision and I think instilled the right values in her family.  But this new space doesn't represent her I don't believe.  Here are my complaints:

 1) Where are the plants!!??  For a short time there were annuals in the market greenhouse.  They were all placed on self watering tables that were kind of set up hodge podge.  The selection wasn't great and it looked like a temporary installation like the Home Depot greenhouse.  All of their other greenhouses you cannot go in to.  If you want a hanging basket you have to walk over to the Travelator and wait until one rolls by.  I know they can water them more easily but it makes for a very unsatisfying buyer experience.  I want to go to a greenhouse and walk amongst the plants and have the baskets above, not on some high tech impersonal device that is in another location that I can't go into. 

2) Still on the plants...now in the winter there are still very few considering the space available within the facility.  I used to go in the winter and look at their plants and gift ware, I would often buy something and come home delighted.  They do have some nice orchids but again everything looks like they are on tables that have been pushed into a hallway until they go to their actual place.  When I went this fall for my mums, the selection was grim and nothing was blooming.  I brought home two big orbs of green that finally opened just before it froze out.

3) My last rant about the plants, I promise.  If you are looking for a lovely arrangement for some cut flowers you will find these there.  However you have to go down into the dark bottom level into a back corner.  The display area isn't much bigger than what Safeway would have.  Again, I don't understand this.  Plants and flowers are what made Holes the business they became, this is truly underwhelming.  They have completely forgotten this it seems.  Could they not move the vitamins and have that whole area for the flowers to that when you come down the escalator you see all of the flowers?  This would also make for a nicer entrance by the spa. 

4) Merchandising.  If you have a new facility especially one as large as this, why would you not utilize all of the space?  Some of the items they have are nice handcrafted gifts, but its a mish mash of this and that and big gaps of space with nothing.  Shelves are sitting empty?.  Everything has a feeling of being temporary.  For god sake Jim, hire someone who knows how to do this properly!! In the old facility the displays were beautiful and had all kind of lovely items for sale.  At halloween there were a few crappy items that looked like you could get at Walmart.  What the hell happened???  My friends parents recently went to the Enjoy Centre to buy a plant pot and left empty handed.  We also went in fall to get some bulbs and there was one display with ONE kind of bulb to buy....in the entire place?  Canadian Tire had more selection that the garden centre did.

5) Furniture.  OK so I am not into the austin powers type furniture that is for sale there now.  That's ok..but could they perhaps make it more appealing by setting it up nicely?  It looks like a bunch of random bits of furniture sitting in the dark hallway with pricey price tags on it.  The cement and dim lighting are not at all inspiring. 

6) Prairie Bistro.  I had a lot to say about this but it has gotten better since they introduced sit down service.  The self serve area was a gong show.  No real flow about where to start and where to go.  No logic to where the knives and forks are, you have to hunt.  No idea why you need to go to three different tills to pay if you want food AND a dessert or coffee.  All from the same place technically but each counter needs a separate till.  I wonder how many people say frack it and skip the coffee or dessert so they don't have to do a separate SLOW transaction   Not good for revenue folks.

7) Prairie Bakery.  Unfortunately not nearly as good as the photos and the hype would make you think.  I am really not a picky person so I am fairly easy to please, but so far what we have bought there has been under mostly underwhelming.  A few things have been good.

On a good note, the Kitchen Store and the Gift Store upstairs are lovely.  They are well merchandised, bright, attractive and the highlights of the place.  I haven't yet gone to the spa and not purchased food from the market downstairs.  Overall the layout is really off putting and the decor is to austere and IKEA looking.  It is like when a bachelor moves into a place and fills it with a few"functional"items.  The basics are there but it doesn't at all feel like home.

I really feel like this place is missing a "womans" touch.  It doesn't have to be a woman, but that is what it needs.  Someone to infuse some character and charm.  Enough with the technical gadgets and cold surfaces.  When I was there it was a prime saturday afternoon period and there weren't many people there at all.  This place should be crawling with poeple looking for somewhere to go on a Saturday afternoon.  It's not my business so I shouldn't care, but it really saddens me that this is the end result of this initiative.  I know they still have more to do but I am not feeling very positive if this is the direction.   If it is then I will find other destinations.  Greenland and Wellington both have it figured out, I will likely spend most of my dollars there next year.