When Brian Murphy walks through his new Overland Park storefront, he sees more than just shelves of dog food and bins of treats.
He sees a warehouse, a headquarters and a major stepping stone of growth for his family’s business.
Brookside Barkery & Bath’s new Overland Park storefront is one of multiple ways that the Murphys have grown the local brand since he and his wife, Jennifer Murphy, acquired it roughly three years ago.
Murphy said it’s also far from the last of Brookside Barkery’s growth in Johnson County.
Brookside Barkery opened new JoCo locations
The Overland Park storefront at 8909 Santa Fe Drive, near downtown Overland Park, serves as Brookside Barkery’s new headquarters and warehouse — in addition to offering retail, grooming and bathing services.
“This is our biggest store by far, twice as big as a typical (Brookside Barkery) store,” Murphy said.
Customers inside the 10,000-square-foot space will find 5,000 square feet of retail, from toys and accessories to towering stacks of dog and cat food and treats. The back half of the store serves as warehouse space.
“We have everything you need for both dogs and cats, and we’ve got plenty of variety,” he said. “And we don’t sell anything with byproducts.”
Along with the Overland Park store, Brookside Barkery also recently unveiled a new storefront at 4322 W. 119th St. in Leawood.
The Leawood shop, formerly a Three Dog Bakery space, serves solely as a retail storefront with no grooming or bathing services.
Brookside Barkery has also launched a delivery service
It’s not just more brick-and-mortar stores that the owners are taking on.
The quickly growing business is also taking on a new venture: one that sends pet supplies straight home to pet owners in Johnson County.
Enter InstaBark, the company’s answer to national pet delivery services like Chewy and Amazon.
The service offers same-day delivery wide variety of items from the northern Overland Park warehouse to homes within a 10-mile radius of the store.
Eventually, Murphy said, each of the other stores will serve as “micro-warehouses” for InstaBark — which means the service will be available to more residents.
“We manage the whole process,” he said, adding that they hope to offer convenience and quality at competitive prices. “That’s the only way to do it to be very effective in getting that same-day home delivery done.”
InstaBark operates on a subscription model, with more than 200 subscribers already on board. Five percent of each subscription goes toward nonprofit clinic Pet Resource Center of Kansas City.
“You can feed a dog healthier food and pay less for it, and get it to your doorstep, and get it on the same day,” he said. “And you’re giving back to pets in need right here in Kansas City.”
More new stores are coming to JoCo
Another new Brookside Barkery store is on the way soon — this one at 3935 W. 83rd St., at the Corinth Quarter shopping center in Prairie Village.
Beyond that, Murphy said the shop is going to continue growing its Johnson County footprint. Its owners are eyeing Olathe next, with “multiple irons in the fire” there — though nothing is set in stone yet. Brookside Bakery also aims to open a new store at southern Overland Park’s Bluhawk development.
When the Murphys took ownership of Brookside Bakery, the company had two stores: the flagship store in Kansas City, Missouri, and one in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
Since then, the family previously opened two more Johnson County stores before Overland Park and Leawood: one in Shawnee, and one further south in Gardner.
Murphy wasn’t a stranger to the pet industry when his family came on board as Brookside Barkery’s new owners. Today, he’s spent nearly two decades in the industry — including an executive role at PetSmart.
For most of that time, he said, national chains had a clear price advantage. But he said a turning point during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many national brands raised prices more than a lot of their local counterparts, shifted things, allowing companies like his more of a seat at the table.
When he takes a look back at where Brookside Barkery has come from, it’s easy for him to remember that it’s still a “mom and pop shop” — albeit one that groomed and bathed more than 60,000 dogs last year alone.
For him and his family, the growth of their company is about community as much as it is about scale.
“My wife and I plan to spend the rest of our lives here, and we love being a part of the Kansas City community,” he said. “Whether (customers) want in-store expertise, delivery or grooming, we provide all of the above. And I truly believe that we do those three things better than anybody in Kansas City.”
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