The Dog Stop opens 10,000-square-foot Kansas City franchise in late October

The Dog Stop will open its first Kansas City location in late October at 2713 Cherry St. according to a company announcement. The facility will offer daycare, boarding, grooming, and retail under one roof.

The footprint and what it carries

The facility will total approximately 10,000 square feet, with about 8,500 square feet indoors and about 1,500 square feet outdoors, the company said. The location will feature multiple play yards designed for dogs of different energy levels and play styles, including dedicated areas for lower-energy dogs, high-energy dogs, and older dogs. A separate Very Independent Player space will serve dogs that do better with one-on-one care rather than group play.

Charlie and Ellen Tocco, a husband-and-wife team, will own and operate the location. Charlie, a Rockhurst University graduate who worked in public accounting before franchising, will manage day-to-day operations. Ellen, a University of Kansas graduate who continues working in health care technology, is co-owner.

The Dog Stop has franchised since 2013 and currently serves dogs at 47 locations across 17 states, with more than 50 additional locations in development, the company said. The brand was founded in 2009.

Multi-service facilities compete differently than single-service operators

A 10,000-square-foot facility carrying four revenue streams (daycare, boarding, grooming, and retail) competes differently than a grooming-only shop or a boarding kennel. The bundled model lets the operator capture a customer across multiple purchase occasions. The dog that uses multiple services also buys retail at the facility, and that repeat-visit density makes the customer more valuable to the facility and harder for a single-service competitor to pull away.

For a grooming-only operator, the new entrant means a customer who used to book grooming separately may now consolidate all their dog care spend in one place. For a pet store stocking grooming tools, shampoos, or supplements, the facility's retail component (described by the company as offering "carefully selected, high-quality products") becomes a direct shelf competitor, particularly for impulse purchases tied to a service visit.

The company's partnership with Fear Free, which trains staff to reduce fear, anxiety, and stress in dogs, positions the brand as a premium option. That training applies across all four service lines, the company said, and is part of what franchisees are selling when they pitch the model to dog owners.

If your margin depends on grooming ancillaries or premium consumables, subscribe to PetRetailNews.

The 47-location count leaves out key growth figures

The company said it operates 47 locations and has more than 50 in development, but the announcement does not break out how many of those 47 are franchise-owned versus company-operated, how many opened in the past 12 months, or what the average facility size is. Without those figures, the 47-location footprint is a snapshot, not a growth rate.

The announcement also does not specify the Kansas City facility's retail assortment, square footage allocated to retail versus services, or whether the Toccos will carry the same product mix as other Dog Stop locations. The company describes its retail offering as a "natural pet retail store," but natural is a positioning claim, not a category definition, and the announcement gives no brand names, price points, or SKU count.

For a buyer trying to understand whether The Dog Stop competes on the same shelf as an independent pet store or operates more like a service facility with grab-and-go retail, the announcement leaves that open.

Our read and what the franchise density means

More than 50 locations in development suggests the franchisor is still in active recruitment mode, not consolidating around existing markets. That pace means the brand is building on the multi-service model's unit economics working in new markets, not just in the 17 states where it already operates.

For an independent store owner in a market The Dog Stop has not yet entered, the development pipeline is the number to watch. The franchise model means new locations can open in multiple markets as franchisees sign on, and a single announcement in one metro can signal broader regional expansion.

The Toccos' decision to franchise rather than build the model themselves also reflects the capital and operational complexity involved. A 10,000-square-foot facility with four service lines, staff training through Fear Free, 24/7 camera access, and multiple play yards is not a side business. The franchise fee and royalty structure (not disclosed in the announcement) are the cost of not having to build that system from scratch.

Service-adjacent retail faces a changed purchase pattern

If you stock grooming tools, shampoos, or consumables that a dog owner buys around a service visit, a new multi-service facility in your market changes the purchase pattern. The customer who used to stop at your store after picking up their dog from the groomer now buys the shampoo at the groomer's retail counter, because it is there and the transaction is already open.

The play is to either tighten your assortment around products the facility will not carry (deeper selection in a category the multi-service operator treats as grab-and-go) or build a relationship that makes the trip to your store worth the separate stop. A facility selling "carefully selected, high-quality products" is not trying to out-SKU you, it is trying to capture the impulse purchase. You win by being the destination for the considered one.

For a brand operator pitching into facilities like The Dog Stop, the existing footprint and development pipeline represent a buyer decision that can unlock distribution across multiple markets. The pitch may go to the corporate team or to individual franchisees, depending on how the brand structures its vendor relationships, and that is a different sales motion than pitching independent stores one by one.

← Back to the Newsdesk