Business goes from puppies to plants
West Side pet grooming store owners branch out to adapt
Like many other business owners this year, Vivien Pick and Sherry Tharp faced a choice: close their businesses or get creative.
So rather than close up shop, the mother and daughter owners of Pets2Groom and Puddles Dog Wash on Albuquerque’s West Side made the decision to launch a third business with the opening of Plant Me Later, at 8521 Golf Course NW.
“I know it’s kind of a strange time to be opening a new business, but in order for us to keep the businesses that we had, we needed something to pull into more revenue,” Pick said.
Pick said business has remained slow at the two separate dog grooming businesses even after the shops were allowed to reopen following a temporary closure.
“We just didn’t get people back like we did before,” she said.
Since the businesses Pick co-owns with her daughter occupied two spaces in a small
shopping center, they decided to move the two dog grooming businesses into one space and use the now emptied space as a plant shop.
She said the transition was made possible by her landlord, who has offered to work with Pick and Tharp to find the best outcome.
Pick said she and her daughter were inspired to make the move from pups to plants during the first shutdown when she, like many others, redid her backyard.
“We noticed that it was really hard to get plants and quality plants,” Pick said.
While Pick and Tharp aren’t botanists, Pick said she works hard to source high-quality plants from out of state because she wants to give her customers healthier plants than they can find at a home improvement store.
Since filling the houseplant sized hole at their shopping center with the store’s opening in early September, Pick said business has been good.
“The community has just been wonderful, their enthusiasm for plants has just been overwhelming for us,” she said.
Much of the business, Pick said, has been driven mainly by Albuquerque’s extensive plant-loving community. Most customers have been coming in from word of mouth recommendations or posts in Facebook groups.
Besides a selection of houseplants, succulents and air plants, the new shop also features up-cycled planting containers and a “potting station” where customers can repot their new purchase with all supplies available for a small fee.