Sonnen's Pet Shop, among city's oldest stores, closes after over 130 years downtown
Second-generation owner David Sonnen, 81, has retired, and the last day for the store — a tiny alcove in the historic Hamm Building that sold birds, fish and other animal accessories — was in May.
Up until its final days, the store famously looked nearly identical to how it had in decades past. But the city around it had changed, David Sonnen said, and downtowns in St. Paul and elsewhere simply no longer serve the same purpose they once did, as a city's main retail hub.
'When I think back 20 or 30 years ago, it was just constant people, all day long, walking back and forth,' he said. 'They came down to go shopping. Everything was down here. But then, of course, the (suburban shopping centers) came and people started going to those, and the online stuff now. Times have changed.'
The business first began in the 1890s as an animal and seed store near what's now the corner of Cedar Street and Kellogg Boulevard, and moved several times. In 1934, amid the Great Depression, the then-owner's widow told young employee Louis Sonnen he could either buy the store or be out of a job. He took up her offer, renamed the store, stopped selling the cats and dogs he found smelly and, during World War II, moved the store to its longtime Hamm Building location. David Sonnen officially took over operations in the 1970s but his father, who died in 2001, remained active in the business.
'I liked being downtown, I liked the atmosphere and I liked taking care of the birds and the fish,' David Sonnen said. 'If things were better (downtown), I'd stay, because it was fun, and I grew up with it. But it just got to a point where it wasn't worth it anymore.'
As for why David Sonnen decided to close the store rather than finding a new owner, all his kids pursued different career paths, and he felt it 'wouldn't be fair for somebody to buy the place when it isn't in a location that's any good anymore and you can't make a living at it,' he said.
During its heyday, though, the store attracted not only everyday shoppers but the occasional celebrity, too. Jack Lemmon would stop in to buy dog food while shooting 'Grumpy Old Men' in the 1990s, David Sonnen said.
As for David Sonnen himself, he now has more time to take care of projects around the house, he said. He doesn't currently have any pets at home, though, he said with a laugh.
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