SUSO Skate Co. has spent five years and 15+ pop-up leases figuring out which vacant mall units make sense for a roller rink. Its next one is confirmed for Woodbine Mall & Fantasy Fair in Etobicoke.
But the bigger story sits one level up from any single lease: increasingly, co-founder Henry O’Brien is putting SUSO’s growth energy behind SKATEVAN, the mobile roller skate rental brand the company spun out of its mall business, rather than into new mall locations at all.
“The goal is to franchise SKATEVAN, and we have fairly aggressive plans to do it. We’re planning to leapfrog Canada entirely and go directly into the U.S. market,” O’Brien said. “That comes down to population scale, the strength of roller skating culture there, and a currency advantage with the U.S. dollar right now. We’re already fielding inbound inquiries asking when and how. That’s the five-year plan: building a franchise system and giving other entrepreneurs access to what we’ve built. We’re obviously biased, but it’s a strong business model.”
SKATEVAN now runs off a single vehicle but covers a wide radius, as far north as Collingwood, Barrie and Muskoka, as far east as Oshawa, and as far west as London, Ontario, working with municipalities, school boards, corporate clients and brand activations. O’Brien pointed to a Pinterest holiday party and a Nissan summer barbecue among its corporate bookings, and said a schools-focused offering has become one of its strongest channels.
“Schools are constantly looking to raise funds as budgets tighten, so it’s a natural fit,” O’Brien said. “We call it roller recess, bringing the experience directly into schools for students. Between the municipal, corporate, fundraising and education channels, it’s a genuinely strong business model, one that can run full-time or part-time. I see it as the natural evolution of the traditional roller rink, which is expensive to operate, highly seasonal, burdened by high rent, and underused in the summer when people want to be outdoors.”
The strategy traces back to how SUSO built its leasing model in the first place, largely by taking on space no one else wanted.
The company has run its pop-ups at properties including Promenade Mall, Bramalea City Centre, Mapleview Centre in Burlington, Cloverdale Mall in Etobicoke, and CF Shops at Don Mills, which ran from 2022 through 2024, plus five years at The Bentway, its original site, which wrapped in 2025. None of it is permanent, and O’Brien has made peace with that. The unit SUSO occupied in Promenade Mall is now a Pickleplex. Its old spot at Oshawa Centre has since been demolished. The location at Mapleview Centre is transitioning to a full-time tenant.
“That’s simply the natural evolution of the retail shift, and it means suitable units are becoming harder for us to find,” O’Brien said. “The future for SUSO likely means looking further afield: the West Coast, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, whether that’s operated corporately or through partners interested in launching their own.”
The model itself came out of a trip to Melbourne, Australia, in the winter before the pandemic.
O’Brien was visiting his brother and walking the boardwalk in St Kilda, a beachside suburb on the outskirts of the city, when he came across two young women renting roller skates out of a refurbished caravan.
“They had the full setup, skates, gear, denim shorts, 30-degree heat, renting roller skates out of a refurbished caravan right there on the boardwalk,” O’Brien said. “It was the visual, the energy, the free spirit of these two entrepreneurs that stuck with me. I was living in downtown Toronto and knew nothing like it existed, but that there would be demand for it.”
The idea sat dormant through the lockdowns. When things started reopening, O’Brien and co-founder Janine Bartels approached The Bentway, the linear park underneath the Gardiner Expressway, whose figure-eight ice rink and shipping container sat mostly unused through the summer months. Cadillac Fairview took notice, and proposed turning a rooftop parkade level at CF Shops at Don Mills into a seasonal pop-up rink, SUSO’s introduction to specialty leasing.
“We had no prior experience in that world. Since then, it’s been an education in specialty leasing, in understanding how much retail space sits vacant ahead of a longer-term redevelopment, whether that’s a future condo project, a food court expansion, or a large anchor space being subdivided into smaller, more leasable units,” O’Brien said. “The biggest lesson has been how willing mall owners are to work with an operator our size to activate that space, drive footfall, and give the community something to rally around.”
He describes the arrangement as a genuine three-way win. “We secure favourable rent, the landlord gets a genuine experiential draw, and the real winner is the community,” O’Brien said. “In the depths of January and February, when it’s minus 20 or minus 30 outside, families suddenly have somewhere else to take their kids. It becomes a full day out: skating and a meal, or a movie and then skating, then shopping.”
Seasonality shapes the model as much as availability does. “Business builds through September as school resumes, picks up heading into the holidays, and peaks around January through March, especially March break, before tapering off in April and May,” O’Brien said. “That seasonality is exactly why we built a pop-up model rather than sign a 10- or 20-year lease and sit idle for half the year. We deliberately pursue indoor space through the winter months and outdoor space with SKATEVAN through the summer.”
SKATEVAN itself grew out of demand SUSO couldn’t say yes to fast enough. Requests came in from BIAs, municipalities and schools asking for a pop-up at single day events, something SUSO’s mall setups couldn’t support. Three summers ago, O’Brien and Bartels rented a U-Haul, packed it with skates and protective gear, and started saying yes with no website and no dedicated marketing behind it.
“We were genuinely surprised. That first summer generated more bookings than we ever anticipated, driven entirely by organic word of mouth,” O’Brien said. “It became clear this could stand on its own as a business, so we made the investment in a proper vehicle, a Ford Transit van, and grew 20 to 30 percent the following summer. We doubled down on municipalities specifically, because nearly every city, town or small village maintains a recreation department mandated to get kids off their devices and bring families together.”
By early 2026, the mobile side had grown enough on its own, and was causing enough confusion with SUSO’s mall customers, that O’Brien and Bartels split it into its own brand entirely, with its own identity, website and booking flow.
The Woodbine Mall & Fantasy Fair location is a different kind of bet than SUSO is used to making, and O’Brien is candid about it. The property carries more history than most malls SUSO has worked with. Woodbine Mall Holdings was placed into receivership in 2023 after lender Romspen Investment Corporation moved to recover more than $330 million owed on the property, then shifted into a CCAA restructuring process this spring after a long-standing Hudson’s Bay lease, one that had complicated any sale, was formally disclaimed. With no outside buyer willing to meet the outstanding debt, Romspen ultimately took ownership itself through a credit bid, a wager that the site is worth more after a market recovery and eventual redevelopment, potentially residential, than what buyers were offering today.
Avison Young, which has managed leasing at the property since the receivership began, welcomed the news of SUSO’s lease. “Avison Young is pleased to welcome the exciting and dynamic SUSO Skate Co. to Woodbine Mall. We look forward to their grand opening in September,” said Kevin Wilson, Vice President, Retail Leasing at Avison Young.
“This location has real strengths: proximity to downtown Toronto and to major highway access via the 427 and 400. The mall itself might be in need of some TLC, but there’s something very nostalgic about the property,” O’Brien said. “The majority of our bookings happen online, so we’re not as dependent on organic foot traffic as other recreation concepts might be. If we can generate enough awareness online, it becomes more of a planned destination, people booking from their sofa on a Tuesday knowing they’re coming in Saturday afternoon. We’re going to lean heavily into the nostalgia and the fact that you can experience Fantasy Fair, the movie theatre and skating in a single visit, positioning it as the ultimate day out for families.”
O’Brien said the uncertainty is real, and part of why he spent time on site himself before committing. “It’s still a calculated risk. We can’t say for certain how it plays out,” he said. “But it’s essential to get boots on the ground, to walk the property firsthand and understand what footfall looks like on a rainy Saturday compared to a sunny Wednesday in the middle of summer.”
Both brands lean hard on grassroots partnerships to build awareness fast in each new market.
“That wasn’t part of our approach when we first started. As we gained experience, local partnerships became essential, particularly for building awareness quickly, since we’re only in a given location for six to 12 months,” O’Brien said. “We have a narrow window to let a community know that the former Sears isn’t there anymore, there’s a roller rink in its place. We’ve partnered with a local brewery for non-alcoholic sampling at Mapleview Centre, a local donut shop that gave out free donuts on opening weekend at Oshawa Centre, chiropractors, and realtors who want visibility and a way to give back, sponsoring an hour of skating that becomes free for families. We’ve also worked with Universal Music on the entertainment side.”
“It genuinely takes a village to run a business and keep it afloat,” he said. “Cash flow is always difficult to manage, so partnering with other like-minded small business owners means the rising tide raises all boats.”
O’Brien credits an unlikely source with pushing SUSO toward SKATEVAN as a hedge against exactly the kind of uncertainty Woodbine now represents. In 2024, he and Bartels pitched the business on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, skating routine included, seeking $250,000 for 10 percent equity.
“One of the core pieces of feedback from the panel was that we’d eventually run out of these spaces, that they’d be redeveloped, reassigned or demolished,” O’Brien said. “That feedback proved accurate, and we’ve watched it play out since the episode aired. It was one of the factors that ultimately pushed us to launch and grow SKATEVAN, since event organizers and brand partners often have deeper resources and aren’t tied to the same real estate risk we are.”
Asked what he sees five years out, O’Brien didn’t pretend to have a tidy answer for SUSO the way he does for SKATEVAN.
“I don’t have a definitive answer for that yet,” he said. “But given SKATEVAN’s mobility, its agility, the higher margins and lower overhead, we see it as the future, and clearly the more scalable of the two brands.”
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.