An Alberta clothing and café company has abruptly closed its five locations, leaving many customers with worthless gift cards and prompting a police investigation.
Sweet Home owners Cody and Eva Borek announced the closure of their company on social media on Monday, Feb. 3. The closure comes months after the company asked customers to buy gift cards so they could raise $400,000 to help them solve an infrastructure problem with their Sylvan Lake location.
Many customers answered that call and spent hundreds on gift cards but never got the chance to redeem them.
“If I would have known a week ago, I would have spent all my gift cards,” said Sheena Larson, who says she spent $400 on gift cards.
“They pretty much asked all these people to help them in a time of need and then it basically was like a slap in the face.”
On Feb. 4, Sylvan Lake RCMP received an allegation of fraudulent business practices involving Sweet Home on the Lake and began investigating. No charges have been laid.
“We turned to our community for help, and you showed up for us in ways we will never forget. Your support gave us the strength to keep going,” Sweet Home said in a post on its Facebook page.
“Unfortunately, despite all of our efforts, ongoing financial struggles, legal delays and high-interest borrowing have made it impossible to continue. Our lender, who holds our inventory and fixtures as collateral, will be taking possession, forcing us to close our doors permanently.”
On Monday, Sweet Home said its locations in Stettler, Canmore, Drumheller and Red Deer would close. On Tuesday, Sweet Home on the Lake in Sylvan Lake was closed as well.
The Boreks opened Sweet Home on Main in Stettler in 2020 and opened their fifth location in Drumheller most recently. But now the couple says they are in receivership.
The couple posted about the plight of their Sylvan Lake shop on Facebook beginning last September, explaining the adjacent parking lot had been closed for six months.
“It is our understanding that our neighbours do not plan to open the parking lot again, and our only hope to negotiate seems to be that we have to make a huge purchase we are not ready for,” posted Sweet Home on the Lake on Sept. 11, 2024.
“The challenge is to come up with $400,000,” they posted.
The company offered customers a deal of spending $100 to get a gift card redeemable for $200.
The business owners said gift cards could be used at all locations and online.
That same day the business owners thanked their customers for their support.
“In the last five hours you have helped us collect $250,000.00 in gift card sales.”
By October, the business said it was successful, “in the most challenging step in reopening the parking lot.”
“Only thanks to you, we did it,” they posted on Facebook.
“We now own the Sweet Home on the Lake property.”
The Boreks were tenants in the Sylvan Lake building, which was listed for sale for $2.5 million.
The couple said they bought it in October. Property records show another transfer of land in January 2025.
CTV News has contacted Sweet Home’s owners by phone, email and social media but has not received a response.
“I think they owe everybody more of an apology. Most of their posts seem to get claiming victim, and at the end of the day, I don’t necessarily know that they’re the victim,” said Larson.
It is unclear how many employees are impacted by the closure of the five cafes and boutiques.
Other business owners in Sylvan Lake have offered alternatives to Sweet Home’s former employees and customers who bought gift cards.
Anyone who brings their gift card to White Frog Café can use it to pay for 50 per cent of their purchases until the total amount of the gift card is used up.
“We were sad to hear that this business was closing and that possibly a lot of people were up in arms about not being able to use their gift certificates,” said Kelly McMillan, White Frog Café owner, adding that the closure rocked the small community.
“Rumours were kind of circulating because the store was looking quite empty, and then all of a sudden just the news hit and just spread like wildfire.
“Everybody’s talking about it.”
