CLOSED - A Place for Pets- Burien

[Anonymous]

Overall Experience 5
Cost 5
Quality of Fish 5
Variety 5
Service 5

Went there last Saturday. Tanks looked good. Ended up buying a few fish. The cichlid person was out that day but other employees were trying their best to help me acquire best cichlid with my new set up of American cichlid tank.

 

[anchlo_808]

Overall Experience 4

Cost 4

Quality of Fish 3.5

Variety 4

Service 3.5

Walked in and was immediately greater by a younger female employee, which was nice. First impression was that it needed a face-lift. Looked a little old and a bit dirty/dusty in some areas. Went to the back of the store, upstairs to the tank room. Was a little crowded with tanks, but did it's job. The plant section (I'm highly critical about a stores presentation of plants) was in dire need of care and upkeep! The "display" tank was Eh.... And looked neglected.... Tons of algae. They had small plastic containers which held ricia and glosso but both containers were completely dry and the plants were dead and dried up! Plant variety was poor. The rest of the fish tanks were in need of cleaning, but not too bad. Prices were clearly marked, we're not outrageous, but not the cheapest either.

I suggest a good cleaning and fresh paint throughout the store. Same goes for the tanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Overall Experience 5
Cost 5
Quality of Fish 5
Variety 5
Service 5

Went there today. Some tanks looked good and some tanks looked so so. The cichlid person was out that day but other employees were trying their best to help identify the cichlids. They have alot of cichlids from Africans to Americans. They have more less common cichlid selection than other lfs near seattle area.

 

[Gryphon]

Overall Experience 3
Cost 3
Quality of Fish (FW - 4, SW - 2)
Variety 3
Service 2

My wife and I stopped in Sunday to see what they had in stock in the SW section. I was quite saddened by the conditions of their SW tanks, almost all of them were over run with Aiptasia and Majanos. Prices were a bit high on the few corals they had, some quite plain and common ones were over priced in my opinion. I also saw a few fish in very bad shape (One of the mandarin Dragonets for one). All of the freshwater tanks looked nice and clean, but the SW tanks were just nasty with algae. Was basically ignored by the staff until I came up to the counter to pay for my purchases.

 

[Sleeves]

Overall Experience 5
Cost 5
Quality of Fish 5
Variety 5
Service 5

I drove from Poulsbo to Burien Yesterday just to visit this store and I was stoked!
It was well worth the drive. The selection of both old and new world cichlids was awesome.

The amount of different African cichlid species was awesome, I was greatly impressed.

The service from the staff was great too.

Grabbed a bunch of fish before I raced to the ferry (which I missed).

Thank you Cory for recommending this place!

I wish we had a LFS like this on our side.
It reminded me of the LFS places of the 80s and 90s back home before the chain places came in and ran them out.

 

[Cadster]

Overall Experience 5
Cost - 4 - no big bargains but fair
Quality of fish - 4 only because some of them are being sold at a very very small size
Variety - 5 Cichlids in particular way above average. Both african and south american. Looks like they get some from local breeders that are healthy and with good numbers to choose from. Very good selection of goldfish and decent selection of general freshwater tropical fish, including again some uncommon ones like the ornate bichir, gorgeous.
Service - 5 - they pay attention and service is prompt and seems knowledgeable.

I have so far only visited south end fish stores so I can't compare to north end but this place is great and I think I'd trust their fish health more than the most south end LFS's
Aquarium supplies selection is also very good with several aisles. I don't recall seeing a huge selection of new tanks (but wasn't looking), but in terms of filters and heaters and foods it's great.

 

[DMD123]

Overall Experience 3
Cost 3.5
Quality of Fish 3.5
Variety 2 (Very low stocked and not a lot of variety)
Service 2 (See bellow)

This place has changed a lot since a certain owner left. The cichlid selection is a joke whereas in the past this was the place to go. Not that Im a saltwater guy but many of the salt tanks were empty. My service rating at 2 is a bit tricky since the young people in the store were extremely friendly and wanted to help. But whoever the older lady was overseeing them was kind of rude. She made my wife and I feel like we were in the way as customers when she was giving instructions to one of the young girls to work on something. We got a very gruff kind of 'please move' request. Who knows maybe that was her being polite but my wife and I both felt like we were being rushed out of the way. Needless to say we left without purchasing a thing. Since my wife both have many years in retail sales we kind of were shocked to be treated like we were in the way. I had not been to the store in a while so it was a special trip up there and was pretty disappointing. No need for me to go there again.

 

[Livebearer Lady]

I visited just last Saturday and yes it has new owners now.
Variety 3.5
Service 5
Cost 3
Experience 4
Employees were very eager to help out. I only bought mesh media bags as I don't need any fish for now...

 

[Livebearer Lady]

Do you guys have a rating to add-in?

 

[Madness]

Do you guys have a rating to add-in?

Exactly. Rate the stores is for just that, if not rating then please take/post discussion elsewhere. Thank you.

 

[DMD123]

This was due for an update.

Store is now permanently closed.

A Place for Pets announced on Facebook on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020 that it would be closing in 30 days.

Here’s the Facebook post:

"A message from our owner: I am deeply saddened to announce A Place for Pets will be closing in 30 days. This is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. I have done everything within my power to avoid this eventuality but sometimes even your best isn't enough and hard choices have to be made. Thank you all for your love and support. I cannot express how great it has been working with and building relationships with so many of you over the years. Myself and the previous owners loved this store and being part of this community."

Karla

"(I will make more announcements regarding reasons/factors contributing to this decision, why we are choosing to seemingly move out so quickly, exit strategy and clearance sales as we move forward. On a personal level I need a few days to emotionally process this decision and start executing plans.)"

 

[sir_keith]

Sad. This used to be by far the best LFS for cichlids of all kinds in the Greater Seattle area. Kevin built the fish section at Sierra Pets in Renton from the ground up, and when he and Sean opened this place, it was awesome. But specialty fishes do not a business make, and as early as 2007-2008 they were treading water. A change of ownership, a change of direction, and now this. It seems like PetSmart and Petco have taken over the LFS world, and for anything other than Fishes 101 you have to go either to other hobbyists or online. Sad.

 

[DMD123]

I loved the selection of Central American cichlids back in the day when Kevin and Sean ran the place. Seems my 'go-to' lately has been fellow hobbyist (@lloyd378, @fishguy1978) or ordering from The Wet Spot or driving down to Portland to visit the store itself.

 

[lloyd378]

I loved a place for pets back then as they were the only place getting in hemichromis fasciatus and frempongi!

sad to hear it closed, but at the same time, I guess that shows you how infrequently I actually visited that shop. I should have been better about supporting them ( the traffic up there always killed me though)!

 

[DMD123]

It was rough driving up there! I remember my last couple visits up there were weird. Lots of teenage kids working but none were very friendly or even outgoing enough to greet you when you came in.

Last visit clearly had some odd stock items like multiple giant gourami... these are not regular community fish and then to have like three in stock was bizarre (maybe a special order for someone?). Yeah sad to see an independent store close like that for sure. Big box pet stores dont help things thats for sure.

 

[Betty]

I spent so much time looking at their African cichlid tanks. Have taken fry there back when I had so many breeding. I'm sad to hear it's gone now.