A lost pet shop in Liverpool where a baboon "lived upstairs" is now a JD Wetherspoon.
For generations who grew up in the Liverpool, City Pets was a weird and wonderful place to visit. Later located in Roe Street in the city centre, it was once one of the oldest pet shops in the country and used to be a popular dumping ground for exotic animals from foreign shores.
Before the laws and regulations we have today, after months at sea, sailors are said to have returned home with "racoons, baboons and even alligators" - often to the disapproval of their wives - and inevitably the creatures ended up at City Pets. Edward Roberts ran the shop until he died in 1916 and the business stayed in the family, being passed down through the generations to his son George and then his sons Keith, Phil and Ray.
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Many will remember visiting the popular pet shop through the years, or staring through the window whilst waiting for the bus at all the fascinating animals inside. Over the years, the type of animals stocked changed, with the likes of baboons, parrots and puppies that were once sold from stalls outside the shop front being replaced by tropical fish, hamsters, rabbits and more.
The pet shop also grew out of its previous premises and relocated to St John's Precinct in the 1960s. But, after 129 years in business, City Pets closed its doors for the final time in 2001.
In October that year, the business was still run by the three Roberts brothers. At the time, Keith Roberts told the ECHO how a bid from landlords Land Securities, who planned to revamp the shops surrounding City Pets, was impossible to refuse.
The ECHO previously reported how with four days to clear the shop and the huge warehouse of pet foods and accessories, a closing down sale started with the words "Everything Must Go" splashed across the windows. At the time, co-owner Keith told the ECHO: "I remember all these animals coming into the shop, which my grandfather used to run, and thinking they were amazing.
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"Paddy the Ape was one of them. He used to live in the shop but one day he escaped and was swinging from the lampposts. You could only handle him with gloves on and everyone was really scared.
"My dad had to come and get him. In the end, we gave him to a zoo. It's not like the animals now. These days the fish are the most popular animals.
"I remember when the shop was the first to move into St John's. My father was still working down here when he was 89 and I have been working here since I was 17.
"I love pets and I am animal-mad. We all are. Since we announced we were closing down, customers have been leaving in tears. I have known some of them for 25 years and they have become friends.
"Sunday will be a very, very sad day. There will be no balloons, there will be no party. None of us feel like it. We will just close and that will be that. The end of City Pets."
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The Liverpool ECHO later shared readers' fond memories of the popular pet shop in years gone by. In 2001, one person said: "While Liverpool's older generation had the Lewis's statue under which to meet, it was that glass entrance packed with fish tanks and cat baskets which was the gathering place for me and my mates. Whether it was a shopping trip to Chelsea Girl or a night at Rotter's nightclub, you'd find us there, dolled up to the nines, scouring the buses as they roared past for our chums.
And another said: "I was shocked and very upset to find that City Pets in St Johns Precinct had closed down. My husband has kept tropical fish for 30 plus years. CityPets was an invaluable source of information and would go out of their way to help people. In these days of impersonal supermarkets it was refreshing and comforting to get a greeting and personal service from the brothers and staff."
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By 2002, the building that was once occupied by the Cunarder pub and City Pets became The Fall Well. A £1.3m conversion of the former City Pets store in St John's Way, near Queen Square, was part of the Lloyds No 1 bar brand of JD Wetherspoon, which at the time already had 10 pubs in Liverpool. That year, Fall Well manager Clare Wilson said: "Wetherspoon pubs are well known in and around Liverpool and hopefully the company's first bar in the city will prove just as popular."
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