ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. — The memories at Roller Garden have spanned generations.
New Year’s bashes.
Birthdays.
Halloween parties.
“Prince” nights.
Class field trips.
“I can smell the roller rink,” Kasie Gonczy said, reflecting on her childhood outside Roller Garden just a block from Highway 100 in St. Louis Park. “And that just goes with the memories.”
But in two weeks, this timeless roller rink will transition into a gymnastics facility, marking the end of an era under the same family ownership since 1969. Co-owner Bill Sahly said the pandemic took a toll during the past year, pushing the family into retirement.
The last skate will be May 8 – with COVID-19 capacity restrictions.
“It really is bittersweet,” Sahly said. “It’s tough to say goodbye.”
Sahly said his family has been overwhelmed by the response from longtime customers. The phone rings constantly with well-wishers, and fans have flooded their social media pages to share warm memories of Roller Garden.
“We want them to remember the friends they had, the friends they made, the impact it made,” Sahly said, “what it meant to them in their life, in their growing up.”
When KARE 11 asked the skating community on Facebook to send their favorite family photographs from Roller Garden, dozens of people emailed pictures within just a few hours. A third-generation skater said that “the best years of my life were spent at the rink,” a place that reminds her so fondly of her late mother and childhood birthday parties. A 47-year-old newcomer to the sport, having started coming to Roller Garden just two years ago, said the facility’s skate school has helped him go “from barely standing up on skates to feeling extremely confident in a matter of a few months.” Another woman described her routine as: “work, sleep, skate, and repeat.”
Angela Higgins, meanwhile, admitted that her first experience at Roller Garden in 2011 did not go so well, at a time when she struggled deeply with an alcohol addiction. A worried friend took her to the rink, hoping to divert her attention from alcohol.
“I was so upset to be there and not drinking. And I was so bad, I hung on the wall the whole time,” Higgins said. “But (my friend) made me go back a few more times and I finally started to kind of like it.”
Although she had always viewed herself as clumsy, Higgins quickly fell in love with Roller Garden and realized she had a lot to learn about the sport. She bought a pair of skates, took lessons, and found herself getting good. She stopped smoking and stopped drinking.
Angela Higgins has been sober for the past 10 years.
“Roller Garden played an absolutely integral part in, not only me rewriting my own story, but saving my life,” Higgins said. “It’s scary to think about that going away. It’s like a church closing down.”
Many people around the Twin Cities can relate.
Although Bill Sahly’s family has owned Roller Garden since 1969, it has been a roller-skating rink since the end of World War II.
“A lot of people met their sweethearts here or brought their children here,” Sahly said. “Remember all those joyful times. And a big, big, thank you to all of them.”