Skiptown’s first franchisee group signs Charlotte-area lease
Bottom line
Skiptown’s first franchisee group has signed a lease for its first franchised dog care location in the Pineville area of Charlotte, North Carolina, marking a tangible next step in the company’s franchise rollout. According to Skiptown and Pet Age, franchisees Chris Tkatch and Bo Fender signed for a site at 10301 Feldfarm Lane, with an opening targeted for early 2027. The deal is the first of two locations planned under the pair’s franchise agreement, which Skiptown announced earlier in 2026 as part of its push to expand beyond its corporate locations in Charlotte, Denver, and Atlanta. (petage.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the lease is another sign that tech-enabled, membership-driven pet services are continuing to professionalize and scale in local markets. Skiptown’s model combines daycare, boarding, grooming, bathing, and walking with app-based booking and communication for pet parents, and the company has said it is building franchising around pet care services rather than its original bar-and-park concept. That matters because larger, more systematized operators can become meaningful referral partners, competitors for support staff, and influencers of pet parent expectations around convenience, communication, and continuity of care. (prnewswire.com)
What to watch: Watch for permitting, hiring, and any additional Charlotte-area site announcements ahead of the planned early 2027 opening, as well as signs of how Skiptown’s first franchised unit translates its corporate model into a repeatable local operation. (prnewswire.com)
Skiptown has moved its franchise strategy from signed agreements to bricks and mortar. The dog care company said its first franchisee group, Chris Tkatch and Bo Fender, has signed a lease for a location in Charlotte’s Pineville area, at 10301 Feldfarm Lane, with plans to open in early 2027. The site is notable not just because it adds capacity in Skiptown’s home market, but because it will be the first location to test whether the brand’s corporate operating model can be replicated through franchisees. (prnewswire.com)
The lease follows a broader franchise push that Skiptown began in late 2025, when it formally opened franchising and said it would target growth in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Colorado. Earlier in 2026, the company announced its first franchise agreements, then added a five-unit Colorado deal and reported continued development momentum in midyear updates. Skiptown currently operates company-owned locations in Charlotte, Denver, and Atlanta, and has positioned those sites as proof of demand for a more connected, service-heavy dog care experience. (skiptown.io)
In practical terms, this Charlotte-area lease is the first real estate milestone under that strategy. Skiptown said the Pineville-area site is the first of two planned under Tkatch and Fender’s agreement. The company’s franchise pitch centers on multiple revenue streams, including daycare, boarding, grooming, bathing, walking, and membership products, all supported by its proprietary technology stack for booking, check-in, and communication with pet parents. In its July update, the company said it had more than 8,000 active members and posted 23% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2026, suggesting it is leaning heavily on recurring revenue and memberships as it scales. (prnewswire.com)
The move also reflects how the brand has evolved. Skiptown grew out of Skipper, a Charlotte dog-walking business founded by Meggie Williams, before expanding into a larger hospitality-driven concept that combined dog care with an indoor-outdoor park and bar. But as it entered franchising, leadership made a deliberate choice to franchise the pet care-only model, not the bar component. In a July interview, CEO Mike Rotondo said the company built its franchise model around the parts of the business that were most scalable and operationally transferable. (axios.com)
Industry commentary around the lease has framed it as an important proof point. Revscale Media noted that moving from a signed development agreement to an actual leased site gives Skiptown something more concrete to show prospective operators than a paper commitment alone. That may matter in a pet services franchise environment where brands need to demonstrate not only consumer demand, but also site selection discipline, labor planning, and the ability to standardize care delivery across markets. (media.revscale.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is less about one address in Charlotte and more about the continued maturation of adjacent pet services. Larger boarding, daycare, and grooming operators are increasingly sophisticated in how they market to pet parents, capture recurring revenue, and use technology to shape expectations around convenience and communication. As those businesses expand, veterinary teams may see new opportunities for referral relationships and continuity-of-care coordination, but also more competition for trained staff and more pressure to differentiate clinical oversight from hospitality-focused care. The rise of multi-service operators can also affect discharge planning, boarding recommendations, grooming-related dermatology follow-up, and how practices counsel pet parents about preventive care in group-care settings. (prnewswire.com)
What to watch: The next markers will be local buildout and permitting activity, hiring, and whether Skiptown announces the second site tied to this franchise agreement before the first one opens in early 2027. More broadly, the key question is whether the company’s first franchised location can reproduce the service consistency, membership uptake, and operational discipline it says it has established in its corporate stores. If it can, that would strengthen the case for faster regional expansion; if not, this Pineville-area opening may become an early stress test for how far the model can travel. (prnewswire.com)