Award-winning pet retailer Jollyes will open its first Chester store in the next few days.

The store, at 2B Chester Retail Park, Old Seals Way, Chester, CH1 4RY will open a unit vacated by Poundland earlier this year.

The store is set to be officially opened at 10am on Friday, August 16 by three special guests.

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

Alongside The Lord Mayor, who’s also a member of the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, will be detector dog Sully and his handler Olivia Uguz. The dog will also bite through a strong 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, which will create 12 jobs, will be led by experienced Jollyes store manager Stephen Williams who’s been promoted to the role after 11 years working for Jollyes in Runcorn.

The Chester store will be 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.

Part of the opening day celebrations will be two Jollyes 'Ambassadogs’ who’ll be sharing details of the new store and what it has to offer over the coming weeks.

They are Evie, a six-month-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.

Dee Radio will also provide entertainment on opening day with activity continuing into the bank holiday weekend with an entertainer and pet theme gameshows on Saturday, August 24, 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: “Over the next week we’ll be working hard to get the store ready to welcome our special guests and customers for the first time.

“My whole team is looking forward to delivering the service, expertise – and above all prices – that Jollyes is becoming famous for right across the country.”

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 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 will be its 105th store in the UK, joining other stores in and around Cheshire in Congleton, Ellesmere Port, Widnes, Runcorn and Warrington. Jollyes main national distribution centre is also in Middlewich.