Award-winning pet retailer Jollyes opened its first Chester store on Friday and has more celebrations planned for this coming bank holiday weekend.

The store, at 2B Chester Retail Park, Old Seals Way, Chester, CH1 4RY was officially opened by three special guests.

Performing the red ribbon cutting was Lord Mayor of Chester, Cllr Razia Daniels a Governor of City of Chester University and The Queen’s School Chester.

Alongside The Lord Mayor was detector dog Sully and his handler Olivia Uguz who bit through a string of sausages to declare the store open.

Sully, a sprocker, works for the border force protecting the country and like many service animals may be supported in later years by the National Federation of Retired Service Dogs (NFRSA) which Jollyes recently named as a key charity partner.

The NFRSA helps support the care, well-being, and welfare of retired service animals from across the emergency service family - the police, fire, border force, National Crime Agency, NHS and prison services.

Over the next 12 months, all Jollyes’ stores will be raising money for NFRSA with collections matched by Jollyes up to £20,000 that will help NFRSA support retired service animals and their owners.

The new Chester store has created 12 jobs and is led by experienced Jollyes store manager Stephen Williams who’s been promoted to the role after 11 years working for Jollyes in Runcorn.

What’s more the Chester store is a great example of the career development opportunities for colleagues as the pet superstore continues to open new stores at pace.

Joining the Chester team are deputy manager Charlie Davis who has been promoted from his role as supervisor at Jollyes’ Flint store and new supervisor Holly Williams. Also part of the opening day celebrations were two Jollyes ’Ambassadogs’ who’ll be going for walks (with their owners) wearing Jollyes coats and sharing details of the new store and what it has to offer. They are Evie, a six months old Labrador cross Border Collie from Hoole who can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/evie.the.lab.x/ and  Mr Bear an eight year-old rescue fox-faced Pom who lives close to the store.

And there’s more activity continuing this coming bank holiday weekend with an entertainer and pet theme gameshows on Saturday 24 August giving every customer the chance to spin Jollyes’ iconic ‘Wheel of Fur-tune’ to win prizes.

Jollyes new store will provide pet parents in Chester access to Jollyes’ raw food frozen ‘shop-in-shop’ and a community pet clinic which will open later this year.

Store manager Stephen Williams said: “We’re delighted to have brought Jollyes to Chester.  My whole team here at the store can’t wait to bring their pet expertise to the city alongside the kind of value that’s been making a real difference to pet parents right across the UK.”

Jollyes has grown its store estate by 50 per cent in three years and has had an remarkable start to 2024 winning new investment to supercharge its growth, being named as the best retailer in Britain at the prestigious Retail Week awards for retailers under £250m turnover and making the Sunday Times’ list for the first time as one of Britain’s best big companies to work for.

Jollyes in Chester is the pet superstore’s 105th store in the UK joining other stores in and around Cheshire in Congleton, Ellesmere Port, Flint, Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington and Wrexham.  Jollyes main national distribution centre is also in Middlewich, Cheshire.

See caller of pictures from the store opening below...