Name: Sue and Steve Watts

Business name: Dogz Dinnerz

Opening hours: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 9am to 5pm

When did you open your business and why?

WE opened our business about 10 years ago. We originally worked at post offices around the country, including one up in Barrow-In-Furness. We left the post office trade, and Sue started at a shop in Chapel Court selling greetings cards and gifts, and I was running a franchise dog-food delivery company. After a while Sue was looking to move on from her giftware shop, and we knew someone who was selling pet food in the market who was retiring, so we decided to buy it off them.

Since then, our range of foods has changed and our business is more towards dog food, whereas before we took over it was dog foods and gardening.

Why in this location?

WE were living here at the time – as I said we were originally in Barrow-In-Furness, then we moved to Shropshire and took over a post office here, and we ended up living in Oswestry eventually.

We were looking for a business and Oswestry was our natural choice because we were living here.

We enjoy working out of the market here – there are more than 40 traders working there, and we all get on together, so it’s like one big community really.

Most of our customers are regulars who we know on a first-name basis, and they become friends after a while, which is really nice – it really does make you feel like part of the community.

Tell us about your business

WE ARE basically a pet shop – we sell foods and toys and those kinds of things for dogs.

We do deliver – we’ve found over the past few months with everything that’s been going on related to the Covid-19 outbreak that the delivery service has been used a lot more.

Like I said, when we’re open a lot of our customers come in regularly, some come in every week, and some will just come and stop by for a chat, so it’s really nice to have that bond with people.

It’s been something we’ve missed a lot during lockdown, and although we’re still seeing some of them when we deliver, it’s very much under strict restrictions and under circumstances which really limit the amount of time and contact you have with people, so it has been a bit different.

It very much feels like a business arrangement at the moment, whereas when you’re at the market, it feels less like business and more like speaking to friends and providing a service.

What is your proudest moment?

I THINK establishing a business that has grown each year in terms of turnover and customers is something we’re proud of. We developed the business throughout a time when the high streets had been struggling too, so I think it has been a success in increasing business each year.

Any strange requests?

THERE aren’t many I can think of since being in Oswestry, but we had some during our post office days.