Chester store where Pets at Home’s retail footprint began celebrates 35 years in the community
This month, Pets at Home’s first ever store located on the Greyhound Retail Park in Chester, is celebrating its 35th birthday. Since opening its doors to the local community in 1991, the store has become well known to generations of local pet owners for providing a much loved, one stop destination for all petcare needs.
Whilst Pets at Home has grown into the UK’s leading petcare business, adding online, veterinary and grooming services along the way, the original Chester store has remained an important part of the business, serving countless of customers over the years. Remaining in the same building since it first opened in 1991, the store has undergone a few changes over the years, including two major rebrands as the business evolved and expanded its footprint. Today, Pets at Home operates more than 460 stores, 350 grooming salons and 460 practice owner‑led veterinary practices across the UK, but Chester remains the place it all began.
Commenting on the milestone, Chief Operating Officer Anja Madsen said:
“Chester is where our story began, and we are incredibly grateful to the loyal customers who have visited us time and time again over the last 35 years. This store is a physical embodiment of our core values, and we look forward to continuing to support pets and the people who love them for many years to come.”
No one embodies that history more than store colleague, Carol Burton, an original member of the15-strong team who were hired when Chester first opened. Carol has been at the Chester store since day one and is Pets at Home’s longest-serving store colleague. A Chester local, Carol first walked through the doors in 1991 and, now 70, remains a familiar face to customers.
Over more than three and a half decades, the measure of Carol’s time at the store is not just how retail has changed, but how life has moved on around it. She has seen customers become parents and grandparents, while becoming a grandmother herself during her time there.
Carol said:
“When I look back, I realise how much of my life fits into these walls. I’ve worked with lovely people, met generations of customers, and now I’ve got a granddaughter who thinks this place has always been part of my world. I don’t think I could ever just stop coming in, I enjoy it far too much.”