Two former restaurant operators opened a Pet Supplies Plus in Fort Worth

A Pet Supplies Plus opened November 9 at 3000 S. Hulen St. in Fort Worth's Trinity Commons, owned by Todd McEvoy and Alan Mann, two Texas natives who met working in restaurants and spent decades in restaurant ownership before moving to pet retail.

Mann ran restaurants for more than 30 years before selling his portfolio. McEvoy built his career in restaurant leadership. Together they chose Pet Supplies Plus as their first franchise outside hospitality, and they are explicit about the transfer: the store's pitch is restaurant-grade service applied to pet retail. The Trinity Commons location will create 15 to 18 local jobs.

The hospitality-to-pet-retail transfer is getting tested in a format war

Pet Supplies Plus positions itself as neighborhood retail against big-box competition, and McEvoy and Mann are positioning service execution as their edge. "After years of taking care of guests in restaurants, it's been incredibly rewarding to deliver that same experience to pets and the people who love them," McEvoy said in the announcement. "Pet Supplies Plus lets us stay hands-on and build real relationships with our neighbors."

The company calls customers "neighbors" and the franchise model leans on local ownership, which makes the operator's background part of the store's differentiation. Whether hospitality training produces measurable traffic or basket gains in pet specialty is what McEvoy and Mann are testing, and it is live in a Texas market where Pet Supplies Plus is expanding against established big-box and independent competition.

The store stocks pet essentials for dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, fish, and small animals, offers self-pet wash stations and carry-out assistance, and runs one-hour curbside pickup and free same-day delivery on online orders. Pet Supplies Plus operates over 725 franchise locations and stocks more than 11,000 products from 400 brands. The Trinity Commons store will partner with local shelters and rescues for adoption events and fundraisers.

The franchise model is recruiting operators from adjacent service sectors

Pet Supplies Plus is a franchise system, which means the company is selling a business model to operators, not just opening company-owned stores. McEvoy and Mann represent a test case: franchise prospects with deep service training but no pet retail experience. If the hospitality background proves out as a competitive advantage, Pet Supplies Plus can recruit a wider pool of operators and potentially lower the barrier for non-pet-retail entrants who bring transferable skills.

The risk is that service execution in restaurants does not map cleanly to pet retail, where product knowledge (natural foods, species-specific nutrition, aquatics) often matters more than tableside manner. McEvoy and Mann think the relationship-building and guest-care habits transfer, and the Fort Worth store will show whether customers value that enough to drive repeat trips and word-of-mouth in a category where convenience and assortment often decide the sale.

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What the Trinity Commons opening means for independent operators

For independent pet retailers in Fort Worth, the opening adds another competitor with a service-first pitch. The counter for independents is deeper product knowledge in specialized categories (raw feeding, species-specific care, local brand curation) and relationships that predate the franchise's arrival. If hospitality training alone were enough to win pet retail, every former restaurant operator would be opening a store. Whether McEvoy and Mann can pair service execution with the category expertise pet customers expect will determine how much ground they take.

The store will celebrate its grand opening November 14 and 15 with a $10 reward for any $30 purchase, prize giveaways, and discounts. Customers can enter to win a $250, $100, or $50 gift card by texting "trinity" to 34653 or visiting psprewards.com/trinity. The store will be open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Our read: the transfer is plausible but the proof is in the repeat rate

Restaurant operators know how to train staff, manage peak traffic, and recover a bad experience, and those skills matter in retail. Whether they matter enough to move the needle in a category where product assortment, price, and convenience often decide the trip is what McEvoy and Mann are testing, and the Fort Worth market will show whether customers value the service layer enough to make it a repeat destination.

What would prove them right: higher basket sizes, stronger repeat rates, and word-of-mouth that brings in customers who could shop closer to home. What would prove them wrong: traffic that looks like any other Pet Supplies Plus, with the hospitality background as a story the operators tell but not a reason customers come back. We will know in six months whether the restaurant playbook transfers or whether it is a differentiation story that does not show up in the register.

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