Is the indoor dog park-meets-café trend losing steam before it outgrows the puppy stage? The jury is still out after two relatively new Portland-area places halted operations.
In South Portland’s Mill Creek Shopping Plaza, the Barkery Dog Bar closed its doors in June after five months in business. The owners called their decision “deeply painful.”
More recently, an indoor restaurant and dog park in Portland called Woof.Play.Eat announced its temporary closure on Instagram so the owners can “focus on securing the future of our business.” As the owners work behind the scenes to reopen, a follow-up post urges followers to “help spread the word” to “tell people why you want us here.”
While neither gave a reason for halting operations, the back-to-back retreats raise questions about whether the all-in-one concept will have staying power in a small market like Greater Portland.
Mainebiz asked a range of sources in other markets for their views on the trend.
“It’s definitely a niche industry, but I’d think enough people like dogs and getting drinks with friends that it could survive in larger cities,” Mitch Coluzzi, co-founder of SoldFast, a real estate firm in Iowa, told Mainebiz via email.
“Not sure why Portland doesn’t have the appetite for it, but trails and greenspace around town might have something to do with it,” he added. “It’s mostly corn and soybeans around Des Moines, so [there are] fewer options for a day out with the dog.”
However, he did note that Des Moines, a city with a population of more than 210,000, is home to a combination dog park and brewery called Paws and Pints.
Daniel Amodeo, president of Amo Realty in Boston, said that while dog parks and dog runs at apartment buildings are often attractive amenities for renters, a standalone spot is a different beast.
“An apartment building can spread the cost of those amenities across hundreds of residents, while an independent business has to convince people to pay for something many apartment communities already include as part of the rent,” he noted.
Ben Mizes, president of the St. Louis-based Clever Real Estate education platform and a licensed agent with 22 rental investment properties, also sees issues with the indoor dog facility business model.
“I think the first-generation version of the indoor dog park model was too expensive for the relatively small repeat customer base,” he said.
“The most successful indoor dog park models,” he noted, “will have cost savings in the real estate part of the business, a substantial membership base and more than one reliable revenue stream before they decide to do a big buildout.”
From an economic development perspective, Augusta Economic Development Director Keith Luke offered this take: “I suspect that the reality with these indoor dog parks is that the entrepreneurs who came up with the idea simply found that they weren’t very profitable. That’s the reality of sole proprietorships. We hear a lot about minimum wages and living wages and those apply to employees, not owners.
“While I can’t speak to the specifics of these Portland-area businesses, I suspect that at the end of the month these business owners simply weren’t left with very much money. ”
He also noted that Augusta has seen a healthy mix of proven national retailers as well as local retailers and food service businesses “make the move into several available properties.”
