Flux: Visionary behind South Texas’ largest independent pet store ready for 2021 - mySA
Flux: Visionary behind South Texas’ largest independent pet store ready for 2021 - mySA |
| Flux: Visionary behind South Texas’ largest independent pet store ready for 2021 - mySA Posted: 09 Sep 2020 02:10 PM PDT 
A ring-tailed lemur sits on employee Kyle Byerly as it nibbles on a treat from Sadie Vaughan, 3. A ring-tailed lemur sits on employee Kyle Byerly as it nibbles on a treat from Sadie Vaughan, 3. Trudy and Norm Housley had no idea what they started when they bought their 10-year-old son, Steve, a pair of 10-gallon aquariums in 1976. The boy loved animals, and he spent all his free time at a local pet shop. Soon, he held a part-time job there. Not long after that, he convinced his folks to open their own pet store. Polly's Pets opened May 6, 1977, as a 1,200-square-foot shop in a strip mall off Pat Booker Road in Universal City. In its 43 years, Polly's has grown into a 17,000-square-foot pet super center, the largest independently owned, full-line pet shop in South Texas. The store still occupies space in that original strip mall, and a rainbow of window paintings announce "Your one stop pet shop," as well as "curbside pickup" and "home delivery." The store has bloomed into a multigenerational business that's part zoo, part retail shop and part entertainment venue. Steve is at the shop most days, along with his wife, Shelly, son, Randy, and daughters, Krystle and Stephanie. On Aug. 29, at least two dozen people milled about the store, which features themed sections — El Itper (reptile in reverse), Tiki falls bird zone, Filton's Cove for fish, Grandpa Norm's Chow Barn and Critterville. Bursts of kids' laughter and bird screeches punctuated the murmur of chatting customers and the old-time Western and big band music flowing from the store's speakers. Crockett the lemur paid no mind to the kids trying to get his attention. Nor did Zorro the coatimundi or Sally the iguana. Hedgehogs slept three abreast under a rounded piece of wood. Three types of sugar gliders hid in their nests. Sleeping ferrets ran in their dreams. Pufferfish flapped their undersized fins. Bearded dragons stood like statues under their heat lamp. In the jungle-themed party room, behind the lemur habitat, Steve spoke about his life's work. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. Q: Earlier, you mentioned Disneyland. How'd it influence you? A: My parents never did a lot of vacations. My wife's parents were always going places, and sometimes they'd take me. After my wife and I were married, her and a friend of ours asked me to go to Disneyland. That's when Astroworld was still open, and I said, "Well, let's just go to Astroworld." They said, "You don't understand, blah blah blah blah." Anyway, I acquiesced, and they took me there, and I think it was the second day I was there I sat down, and I was in awe. I swear they had like 50,000 people, and the place was spotless before and after. I was telling Shelly, "How do they do this? This isn't even real." And the staff was amazing. So, ever since then, that's always been my goal. Q: What challenges have you faced this year? A: I've been doing this for over 40 years altogether, and I've never had a year that rivals this one. With COVID, we had limited staff and limited hours. We were an essential business, which was good, but at the same time scary. About a month into it, one of our staff comes by and says, "Steve, something happened, a big noise burst." The main water for our sprinkler system, a 5-inch water pipe, exploded. Luckily, we were able to get it turned off in five minutes. There was an inch to 2 inches of water everywhere in the store. We were able to reopen the following day and have been rebuilding since then. That was horrible, but what was by far the worst was getting a call that two of our staff members, Madison and Taina, were in a car accident and were killed. This just happened last month. These were two young girls full of energy, loved animals, and it tore our staff and us apart. You think about all the other little problems we had and that immediately becomes nothing. Each of those girls' parents are fantastic people. That's never happened to us in all these years, and you don't know how to handle it exactly the best way. We have great people here. They work through it, and I'm so proud of the staff the way they do everything. I hope no one has to go through that, parents or friends. It's horrible. So, yeah, this year has had a lot of challenges. Q: Other challenges through the years? A: When the (previous) recession hit, that was a huge challenge for us. Before this year, that was the single worst thing. We had to scramble. My wife and I had to drain our savings. We had to sell a rental house. We had to sell our house to keep things going so we didn't have to let anyone go. We just kept things going. We learned a lot from that, and we're not going to let ourselves get into that position again. Q: How's the pandemic affected your business? A: At first it impacted us a little, but when people started feeling OK coming in here and feeling a little more safe, we've been OK. We're blessed with some of the best customers you could ask for. One of things about this virus is that it's gotten families closer, and that helps any businesses that are family-oriented. I think it's important that kids have pets. Right now, parents are forced to be home with the kids and the pets, and they're raising these things together and learning so much more and doing so much more as a family. I can't wait until we get over this and get a little more normal. Q: Are people buying more pets now? A: Yeah and no. I think people are making better decisions buying pets right now. We're getting a lot of families really learning about these things before buying them. They've had the time, so they're making some good decisions. As far as puppies go, we only get them from the Humane Society, so last week was the first time we've had any puppies in months. We do work with a couple other shelters, and they were able to bring some kittens in. We've adopted out like 900 puppies over the last few years. Q: Do you see trends in people's interest in pets? A: Yeah, a couple years ago not a lot of people were doing as much with pets. But now because education has increased so much and the quality of care has increased so much, it's helped a lot. A lot of our animals are captive-born or raised from individuals and local people, so there's nothing wild or anything. Bearded dragons are probably our most popular selling lizard, and those are all captive-born. Q: What's the best part of your job? A: Going home. No, right now I love interacting with our staff. I've been so impressed with these young people. They're fun to work with, and they've got their head on their shoulders. I also enjoy the projects and building things because we do it all — we pretty much do all of that here in-house. Q: How's the pet business changed over the years? A: Well, there used to be a lot of pet stores, and there aren't that many pet stores anywhere. There are very few full-line stores that carry everything. And now with the big-box stores, which we have learned to compete with really well. Online has been an issue and will continue to be an issue, but we've worked with that. We have to offer a better product, better service and a better environment. You can order online, but sometimes you need to get out of your house and go do something and have some fun. Hopefully, this is the place. Q: What was the impact of the big-box stores? A: The big-box stores came about, and we thought they would affect us some. But each time a big-box store would come around, our business seemed to increase. I was talking to the person who used to own one of the largest vendors that we buy from, and he said he thinks it's because of the advertising they do. Overall, it gets more action and more attention. Every store has its thing. You need to find what your niche is and try to excel at that, and I think that's your key in business. Not everything you do is going to succeed, that's for sure. Q: How's your online business? A: We've done online for years a little bit. We don't do a lot of it, even today. I'm not going to get in that fight with the big guys. For a lot of our customers who use online, they want us to have it picked and ready for them when they come in, or they want us to deliver it to their house. We get a lot of military customers, and they get stationed in another state or somewhere and we'll ship to them. The website helps that out a lot, too. Q: How's Polly's changed over the years? A: Just constant, but it's still family. When a person comes in and wants to see a family business, you're going to get a lot of family here. Q: Do you have pets at home? A: I have dogs at home. I have enough pets here. Q: Do you ever take days off? A: Oh, yeah. Nowadays, I do. When I was younger, there were a lot of weeks I didn't take off. But now that the kids are running it, I make sure I get out of here. I'd drive them nuts if I was here as much as I used to be. Q: How many employees do you have? A: It depends, 15-20. It depends on what holidays are coming up and what kids are coming back from college. If they worked here and had to go away for college, they always have an open invitation to come back to work whenever. Just give us a call, and we'll put them back on the schedule. We do that all the time, and almost all of them take us up on it. Q: Did you use the federal Paycheck Protection Program? A: We did some, not much. It didn't help us too much either way. I haven't heard too much back at all. Luckily, we've been essential, so we haven't needed it as much as some of the other places. Q: What do you mean by wanting to give customers a new show every time? A: When a customer comes in, that's a new show. Every time they come in here, it should show a little bit different to them, but fun. It should always be fun. We've had to concentrate so much on this COVID stuff, and so much on the flood lately, that we haven't been able to concentrate on the show aspect, and that bothers me because that's what we do. Q: Your favorite animal? A: I still like dogs overall. But I will say my favorite animal is that brown lemur, Crockett, in there. We got him by happenstance a couple years ago as a baby. You know, I didn't want it. He was going somewhere else, but we didn't want him going there, so I thought OK. That has been the most personable animal I've ever had. I never thought anything beside a dog could be that way, but that animal is smart, very loving and caring. It'll come up and hug you and let you play with it. It's just weird, you know, I mean I'm a 50-some-year-old guy, and I said, "Wow, this is really cool." It really surprised me. I don't know if I want to say that in the article so much because I don't recommend lemurs as pets for people. We don't sell those things or anything. Q: What's next for Polly's? A: Usually, I would have a big goal for the next year or five years. Right now, I've stopped all that. With the flood and COVID and everything, I want to get through 2020. That's my goal. We get through 2020 and have the store looking good and customers happy, and then we'll start planning what the future holds. We get through this year in one piece, then we've accomplished something. Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. To read more from Brandon, become a subscriber. brandon.lingle@express-news.net | Twitter: @Brandlingle |
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