Pet supply store plans February launch in Ozark

Last edited 1:33 p.m., Jan. 13, 2025 [Editor's note: The owners' last name has been corrected.]

A husband and wife are amid a career shift out of the food service industry and into pet care with the planned opening of a store next month in Ozark.

Aaron and Angie Green are targeting a mid-February soft opening for the first southwest Missouri location of EarthWise Pet, a national chain of pet supply stores. The 2,400-square-foot shop at 1746 S. 20th St. is in a strip center fronting Walmart Supercenter.

“EarthWise Pet is basically known as a holistic pet supply store,” Aaron Green said, noting the shop offers pet nutrition products, along with supplies, snacks and toys for dogs and cats. Additionally, EarthWise Pet provides grooming and self-wash services.

“Angie and I are certified pet dieticians, which means that we have several hundred hours into pet nutrition as far as all aspects of digestion, food, how what they eat affects the organs,” Green said, noting EarthWise requires all franchisees go through the company’s pet dietician certification training program.

Angie Green said the company “promotes health from the inside out.”

“We focus on nutrition and digestion because health starts in the gut,” she said. “So, if you feed the gut right, the whole body’s going to feel right.”

The couple plans to open the store with a staff of nine, noting they signed an eight-year lease for $3,300 per month with R.B. Murray Co. The EarthWise Pet website notes the investment for a store ranges $466,500 to $828,000. The Greens said they are on the high end of that range.

The Ozark store marks only the third Missouri location for Wenatchee, Washington-based EarthWise Pet, Aaron Green said, adding other stores are in Kansas City and Creve Coeur. According to the company’s website, it has over 200 locations in the U.S.

Green said he and his wife are excited to make a professional pivot from the food service industry, where they collectively have worked for nearly 40 years.

“We actually are taking a pretty dramatic turn. We both have been in food service for a long time,” he said. “We had this opportunity come up and took it.”

Most of their work in the industry has been health care-related, such as nursing homes, hospitals and assisted living facilities. Angie Green said she continues to work as a cook at assisted living facility Springhouse Village in Springfield until the store opens, while her husband recently exited his job at the Buc-ee’s travel center to focus on their new venture.

While getting set to launch their first store, the couple has two more locations planned for the Springfield area. However, the timetable and locations for those are yet to be determined. He said they paid a $118,000 franchise fee for the rights to three stores.