Skiptown's Texas entry adds five units to a franchise pipeline with none open

Five dog care facilities, one franchise couple and a development schedule that runs into the early 2030s. Skiptown is entering Texas through a five-unit agreement covering greater Austin, with the first location targeted for fall 2027.

It follows a two-unit Charlotte agreement and a five-unit Colorado deal, both signed this year. None of those franchise units has opened.

Skiptown signs a five-unit Austin deal for fall 2027

The Charlotte, North Carolina, dog care franchise announced the agreement on September 29th, 2026. Marilyn and Matt Willson, longtime Austin residents, will own and operate the units. Marilyn Willson spent 25 years in nonprofit fundraising before becoming a licensed Realtor. Matt Willson's background is in financial analysis, technology and customer service leadership.

The couple plans to start in the northern part of the market, where they are evaluating North Austin, Cedar Park and Pflugerville for the flagship, then work across the metro's main corridors. After the fall 2027 opening, they aim to add a location roughly every 18 months.

"Texas has been high on our franchise growth list," said Trevor Robinson, Skiptown's head of franchise development.

Skiptown runs three corporate locations, in Charlotte, Denver and Atlanta. It began franchising in late 2025. Each franchise carries a $45K initial fee, a 6% royalty and a 2% brand fund fee, according to Skiptown's February 2026 franchise disclosure filing, which puts the estimated initial investment per location at $904,679 to $1.69M.

Signed franchise units are outrunning open ones

Apply that range to five units and the Willsons are looking at roughly $4.5M to $8.4M in total build-out, by our calculation.

At one opening every 18 months, the fifth Austin unit would land around fall 2033. Six years is a long runway for a format still proving itself as a franchise.

The first franchisee group, in Charlotte, signed a lease in Pineville in August and targets early 2027 for its opening. A five-unit Colorado deal followed in June. Add Austin and that is at least 12 announced franchise units, none open yet. Skiptown told Mergermarket it had awarded two agreements in Charlotte and has never disclosed the unit count on the second.

Announcements are where franchise systems look best. We made the same point when Sparkle Grooming's license count raced ahead of its open salons, and the gap between signed and open is the number that matters here too.

Austin also carries a specific warning for the concept. Skiptown's corporate stores pair daycare and grooming with an off-leash park and a bar for owners, the bundle behind its VIP membership, priced from $60 a month. Yard Bar, an Austin dog park and bar that opened in 2015, announced in April it would close on May 30th. Its owners called the decision "purely a math problem."

The Austin release lists daycare, boarding, walking, bathing and grooming and never mentions the bar, though the Charlotte franchisee's announcement included one. It could be that Austin gets the full bundle and the release simply left it out. If the Willsons build a leaner services box, they walk into a market where incumbents are already established. Camp Bow Wow alone lists four greater Austin locations and says that network serves Cedar Park and Pflugerville.

The 8,000 active memberships Skiptown reported at the end of the second quarter are also company-reported.

The 2027 opening count decides the franchise story

Skiptown told Mergermarket in March it expected eight to 10 franchise locations to open in 2027. Two dated openings have surfaced publicly so far, Pineville in early 2027 and Austin in the fall.

The next test is whether the Colorado group discloses a date and whether any of the other signed units break ground next year. A system that opens fewer than half its expected 2027 units would be telling franchise buyers something the signing announcements don't.

Austin's pace gets its own check in 2029, when a second unit should follow the first if the 18-month cadence holds.

Signing is the easy part.

Source: Skiptown via PR Newswire