Salty Dawg is a dog grooming salon franchise. The franchisor is Loyalty Brands, and the owners are John Hewitt (founder of Jackson Hewitt and Liberty Tax), Winn Claybaugh (co-founder of Paul Mitchell), and Gary Ratner (Hair Cuttery, My Salon Suites). Their plan is to grow Salty Dawg to a national brand with 1K+ stores. The larger plan is for Paul Mitchell to add dog grooming products (which they already have), and for Paul Mitchell Schools to add dog grooming training and certification.

I'm the Atlanta franchisee for Salty Dawg's Atlanta location, plus I have the development rights for the entire market. My primary business is Great Clips, and I own several dozen. I view the dog grooming business as being very similar to the hair salon business. Same real estate, same accounting, similar operations and marketing. The goal is for Salty Dawg to become the Great Clips or the Supercuts of pet salons. The numbers on a Great Clips, for example, are it costs $200K to open, they do about $400K in sales, and they have store level profitability of about 20%. Salty Dawg, though still in its infancy, costs about $300K to open, should do about $800K/yr in sales, and should have store level profitability of about 15%.

I'm listing my fully staffed Atlanta Salty Dawg location for $295K, but I'd also be willing to build/open/sell a new location for about the same price.