Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Alpha8472
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sunvalley Mall in Concord, California had a pet store in the mall for years that had puppies, kittens, rats, mice, birds, and a large aquarium area with many types of fish. That one disappeared perhaps in the 90s. It was rumored that rats and mice escaped from the store and the mall told the store to leave.

The rodent problem in the mall kept getting worse and worse over the years. They were never able to get rid of the rodents.

A few years ago, about 70 percent of the restaurants in the mall were closed down by the health department due to rodent infestations. The mall was devastated. The brand new food court lost 90 percent of the restaurants. The mall had trouble finding replacement restaurants. To this day there are still many vacant restaurants.

So I can see why many malls are hesitant to open up pet stores in the mall. It could mean the end of most of the restaurants in a mall if the rodents get out.

These days pet stores seem to either be outside of malls in the parking or lots or in strip malls away from malls. If a pet store is in a mall it is best to ban the sale of rodents.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by mjhale »

Docktor Pets is the store I remember in the local malls growing up in the 80s. The floor space of the typical store was about the size of a current mall shoe store, deep but not particularly wide. Entering you had two display windows on either side where they usually had kittens or small animals like gerbils, guinea pigs or hamsters. Inside typically the left wall had many cages of various sizes for small animals, cats/kittens and birds and tanks for fish. The middle and right side of the store had the typical pet supplies like toys, leashes, food, treats, etc. I don't ever recall Docktor having puppies and certainly not dogs. Neither did they have any sort of adoption events. Where I lived people relied on the animal shelter if they wanted to adopt a pet. I remember the Docktor Pets locations going out of business in the very early 90s. There were always rumors of Docktor not taking care of the animals very well but nothing was ever proven. Further, at least in my family, why would you pay to get a pet from Docktor when the animal shelter at the time was free or maybe just a few dollars. The Docktor stores left the malls when the malls went fashion oriented and other non-restaurant service type stores left too.

I have a colleague at work whose parents used to own a pet store in one of the further out DC suburbs. They did well for a long time. What led to them going out of business was first stores like Petsmart and Petco, then Walmart and then the internet. One could argue that the locally owned store still has a place especially in something as personal as pets. There is one small chain of four pet stores in Northern Virginia plus higher end boutique type stores. But the general pet store like my colleague's family has gone the way of the chains and the internet especially here where costs are high and people are looking for one stop shopping at low prices. In my own neighborhood there are multiple dog owners. I see multiple deliveries from Chewy over the course of the week. That alone says something about where pet buying has gone.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by pseudo3d »

Alpha8472 wrote: April 4th, 2022, 2:15 am Sunvalley Mall in Concord, California had a pet store in the mall for years that had puppies, kittens, rats, mice, birds, and a large aquarium area with many types of fish. That one disappeared perhaps in the 90s. It was rumored that rats and mice escaped from the store and the mall told the store to leave.

The rodent problem in the mall kept getting worse and worse over the years. They were never able to get rid of the rodents.

A few years ago, about 70 percent of the restaurants in the mall were closed down by the health department due to rodent infestations. The mall was devastated. The brand new food court lost 90 percent of the restaurants. The mall had trouble finding replacement restaurants. To this day there are still many vacant restaurants.

So I can see why many malls are hesitant to open up pet stores in the mall. It could mean the end of most of the restaurants in a mall if the rodents get out.

These days pet stores seem to either be outside of malls in the parking or lots or in strip malls away from malls. If a pet store is in a mall it is best to ban the sale of rodents.
Yeah, but lots of malls had pet stores, and even if the rodent problem was started by the pet store, they were able to get enough food and rat to build up a massive colony. There must be another factor at work there, like dumpsters not being taken care of.

I had heard that there was a pet store in the local mall back home next to a chain Mexican restaurant. While the pet store later moved away from the restaurant and eventually closed, the Mexican restaurant has been open for decades despite a fairly stringent health department.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by buckguy »

This was a real memory shaker. It's been ages since DoctorX was in malls. Another chain was something like Puppy Palace. They were in large community shopping center strips, too. There was a a lot of litigation with these places and their connections to puppy mills. I would imagine that if the businesses weren't self-destructing, malls would have wanted to avoid any kind of controversy.

People definitely like their Chewy deliveries, but I'd imagine that between the big box pet stores and any retail done by doggie day cares (a number me) and vets, whatever brick and mortar niche that indie pet stores had is pretty much gone.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: April 4th, 2022, 5:40 pm

People definitely like their Chewy deliveries, but I'd imagine that between the big box pet stores and any retail done by doggie day cares (a number me) and vets, whatever brick and mortar niche that indie pet stores had is pretty much gone.
There is a group in my area called Pet Station who is run by a couple old BBB store managers and they opened a few small locations around town, featuring "dog wash" stations. Their mix of food is premium and in my view limited and not priced well, but they seem to keep opening new locations and I am very surprised how close together they are opening locations and they seem to be staying open. So there still seems to be a space for independent pet stores.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

buckguy wrote: April 4th, 2022, 5:40 pm People definitely like their Chewy deliveries
As a retired Letter Carrier, I liked them too because of their superior packaging vs. what you'd get from an Amazon parcel containing pet supplies.
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Re: Mall Pet Stores & Chain Pet Stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

The Petland chain,currently a shadow of its former self,did operate locations in Sacramento at one point(as late as the mid-1990's),including a location at Arden Fair Mall.Back then,Petco and Petsmart both had yet to gain significant traction locally,and the market was dominated by independents.
For your life,Thrifty and Payless have got it.
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