The Birth of a Store

Once upon a time there was a single mom looking for a way to get out of the house. Her favorite pet store was looking for a part-time worker to clean cages. All right!

But she was too competent for her own good. She put away stock, then she moved up to pricing stock, then she moved up to ordering stock. In order to help her boss lose less money, she became operating partner and bought half the store. Her former boss adopted a child then got pregnant. Now the women had to decide whether or not to lock the children in a closet so the store could become all they wanted it to be.

They sold the store, each ending up with about a third of the inventory after the new owner sorted out what it wanted to keep. At that time, the woman’s parents were in charge of Flea Market vendors in her hometown of Sumpter, OR. What could be easier than renting some sales space to get rid of pet supplies while mooching room and board off of Mom and Dad?

2005

This worked well for a while, but sales slowed. The woman’s dad said, “You’d probably be able to sell this boutiquey stuff if you added some regular stuff around it.” So she did.

The tent got bigger and fancier. The woman’s daughter grew and got older. The woman really wanted to move back to her hometown, and eventually the day came when she could. She purchased her grandmother’s home from her estate and a building to put all the pet supplies in. Real walls! No more unpacking and packing. The business that was registered in 2001 and came out of storage three times a year found a permanent home; the official opening of the new space was March 18, 2010.