A lot has changed in the past 25 years, especially up at the Reber Ranch, where they’ve watched the city creep closer and closer.
“Kent’s gotten a lot busier,” said Reber Ranch General Manager and President Todd Reber.
Reber remembers back in 1984 when his father first bought the property when there was very little traffic along 132nd Avenue, which today supports a steady stream of cars and trucks.
The store has changed considerably as well since his parents, Darrell and Sally Reber, first opened the 10-foot-by-10-foot shop as a hobby farm and a place to sell hay and feed to the surrounding horse community, which was supported in part by the now-defunct Longacres race track.
The family opened the store in a small room on the side of a dairy barn on the 40-acre property.
Today, they’re still on the property, as is an old quarter-mile training track and horse barns. But after a fire in 1991, the store was reborn into the giant 18,000-square-foot barn and store that sits on the site today, quite a cry from the “Plan A” of doing horse training when the shop was founded.
“We’re on plan C or D now,” Reber said with a smile. “You just keep adapting.”
What hasn’t changed, according to Reber, is the focus on being a family business. Though his father died four years ago and his mother now has a “flexible schedule,” Reber has taken over as general manager and is already training his 12-year-old son to get into the business.
“It’s a family business,” Reber said with a shrug, adding that his dad “enjoyed every day he came here.”
“And it will continue to be a family business,” he added.
Reber takes great pride in his work with his brother to rebuild the shop and help it grow into the the business it is today, with 25 full- and part-time employees.
“That’s all I’ve been doing ever since,” he said of his life since the rebuilding.
Along with a bigger store, the business also is changing, as the farms seem to get a little further away each year.
“It used to be 100 percent horses, now it’s mostly pets,” Reber said. “The horses are moving further out.”
Today, though they still deliver and stock large amounts of hay, Reber said the main crux of the business is pets, mostly dogs and cats. The store’s largest section these days, to go along with the horse tack and gifts, is the pet section.
“As the houses come in closer, they can’t fit a horse in the backyard,” Reber said.
The store even allows leashed dogs in the shop and Reber said the animals sometimes seem to do most of the shopping and gain the most attention from the staff.
“Our people out in the store know the dogs’ names, but not the people,” he said with a laugh, adding that staff members have to be animal lovers to work at the store. “They have to have that background to work here.”
The store also has expanded with a pair of dog parks on the property: one that is free to all, and one, with a series of obstacles and toys, open to those who are part of the store’s reward-card program, which was added this year.
Reber attributed the store’s success to a focus on being part of the community, with horse shows in the summer, opening their property to local cross country teams and events at holidays, such as the “Howl and Prowl” pet costume contest and adopt-a-thon Saturday for Halloween.
“We’ve watched kids grow up here,” Reber said. “Then they turn into customers.”
Though the dogs are a big part of the business, Reber said they have feed for just about any animal and a sign in the front of the store contains a list stretching from aardvark to zebra (which Reber said one local patron has).
But what’s the most unusual animal they serve?
“We’ve got one customer who comes in and buys wallaby food,” he said.
Going from hobby farmers to pet owners has been a challenge and not everything they’ve tried along the way has worked, but Reber said the Ranch would keep focused on customers and that he still enjoys coming in to work every day.
“My best days are going out to the counter and seeing people who’ve been shopping here 20 years,” he said.
“It’s been a great business to grow up in,” he said.
Reber Ranch is located at 28606 132nd Ave. S.E. For more information call 253-630-3330 or visit www.reberranch.com.
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