NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

The Next Big Membership Business Might Be a 24,000-Square-Foot Indoor Dog Park With a Bar 

The U.S. pet market is relatively recession-proof and should top $160 billion in 2026.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

APR 27, 2026

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

It’s hard to find anything good to say about the pain and isolation that so many people suffered during the pandemic, but for pet owners and especially single men and women, it was an amazing opportunity to head outdoors and safely meet with your neighbors and their pups, as well as interesting strangers on neutral turf with no strings attached. Pet adoptions during Covid were through the roof, and for many of us, our animals were worry sponges. Also, because work from home has now seriously taken root in more than 35 percent of all working households, millions of folks have been able to keep their new best friends and make them a major part of their daily activities and especially of their social lives.

Millennials and Gen Z make up the majority of pet owners and over 60 percent are remote workers, entrepreneurs, and retirees with flexible schedules. More than 75 percent of pet owners say that current economic conditions haven’t changed their pet spending and roughly the same percentage admit that they’re more likely to splurge on their pets than themselves. It doesn’t hurt the industry’s prospects that the U.S. pet market is relatively recession-proof and should top $160 billion in 2026.

There’s been a throwback to those imagined days in the 70s rom-coms where all it took to meet the man or woman of your dreams was a leash, a cute cocker spaniel, and a walk in the park. Outside in the fresh air—even during the worst of the pandemic—not even the omnipresent masks were a problem. Of course, the whole program was largely dependent on the weather, which back in those days was unpredictable at best. Rain, snow and bitter cold made the daily rituals tough on the pups and even harder for their parents. These days it’s even crazier.

The truth is that in most cities, you can have three seasons of weather in a single day with the occasional hailstorm, hurricane or tornado tossed in as well. This is one of the main reasons the team from Zoomies is opening a huge new indoor dog park in Chicago that takes the weather out of the equation. Chicago has about 600,000 dog-owning households with about 250,000 homes within 20 minutes of the new location. This is its initial location with rollouts planned for other major urban areas shortly. After the business model is proven out, the plan is to expand through franchising. The Zoomies environment has been designed with a powerful HVAC system that refreshes and replaces all the air in the entire 24,000 square foot facility every eight minutes as well as an impervious rubberized floor that’s easy to maintain and comfortable for the four-footed fans and their folks.

A Zoomies dog park in Chicago.

The first of its size in the U.S., it’s a clean, cool and inviting place to let your pup play with others in a safe, secure and leash-free park. There’s a separate area for smaller dogs, some enclosed outdoor runs for when the weather’s great, private runs, and a full line of daycare, boarding and grooming services. And for members, there’s an included free monthly nail trim which eliminates one of the most uncomfortable and squeamish tasks of any conscientious owner. I’d love to have a quarter for every unused nail clipper sitting and gathering dust in people’s homes after their first abortive attempt to clip their own dog’s nails. It’s not a job fit for man nor beast.

But the real bonanza at Zoomies is that it addresses the community and social component which is missing in most outdoor park visits these days where the dogs need to be leashed, the nannies and yuppie parents give you dirty looks for invading their kids’ space, and half the crowd are surly and snarky dogwalkers who could care less about anything other than getting the dump done and moving on to their next gig. These aren’t reliable regulars or partner prospects; they’re more like unhappy folks working off their community service sentences. Not the crowd you’re ever looking to hang with.

Zoomies are designed to be upscale social clubs as well as dog parks, and look to me like a fun place to spend some time with your pets and friends. There’s a full-service bar, comfortable seating, and a coffee lounge so you can get just about whatever you need to eat or drink—morning, noon or night. The business plan expects that regular monthly and annual memberships will contribute about 25 percent of the recurring revenue with other principal revenue streams including day passes and daycare, grooming and boarding, community events and private parties, and retail sales and sponsorships.

Pets represent an interesting emotional intersection—responsibility without romance—although at Zoomies there’s a strong likelihood that you might just have both. And remember that a dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than it loves itself.

 

Why the journalistic 'center' cannot hold

Plus: The New York Times responds to criticism of its business story on Lauren Sánchez Bezos

Margaret Sullivan

Apr 21, 2026

In my last post, I asked you, readers, to tell me what you thought about this concept that seems to intrigue media owners — that their news organization should set out to appeal to an audience that craves some sort of middle ground and identifies politically as centrist.

Most recently, this has come up at CBS News under its new, right-leaning management, and previously at CNN. Other media executives seem to agree, though it’s not always as clearly articulated.

The New York Times business section’s profile of Lauren Sánchez Bezos, here with her husband Jeff Bezos, drew plenty of criticism. A Times editor responded to my questions./ Getty Images

Aiming to attract the political middle has always seemed like a weird concept to me, and so far, it hasn’t seemed to benefit those news organizations at all. Quite the contrary.

I asked you to tell me if you see yourself as one of these center-searchers. Your answers were fascinating; most of you said that you’re looking for something different in your news choices — factuality, fairness, authenticity, a sense of mission and yes, truth.

On the same subject, I’ll share a recent speech by the renowned former editor of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, Marty Baron. Speaking at a journalism-ethics awards gathering a few days ago, he covered a lot of ground; the whole speech is worth your time.

But here’s why this “aim for the center” notion runs counter to his idea of ethical journalism.

Finally, I’ll mention a mindset in vogue among a certain crop of media executives. Although they claim to want politics out of the newsroom — and I do, too —they simultaneously propose a political calculus for their journalists. The new owner of CBS and the current editor-in-chief of the news division, for instance, set an explicit objective of appealing to the center right and the center left. That is a political goal. It is not a journalistic one. And it is a far cry from how Jack Knight instructed his newsroom: “Get the truth and publish it.” That is a journalistic goal.

Media owners who substitute political goal posts for news values find refuge in sophistry. They lay claim to ethics; instead, they subvert them. Their path may be one of commercial convenience. Or of timidity. Or of appeasement to regulators, legislators and the president himself. Or the instinctual path of those who see the press only through the lens of politics. But a news outlet of that formulation is fated to compromise ethics when a rock-solid story moving toward publication is deemed to fall outside the designated political comfort zone.

Accurate, independent, ethical coverage may be well received by the center right, or it may not. It may be well received by the center left, or it may not. No one should set out to alienate anyone. But at times, as Jack Knight said, the best journalism may end up facing “public wrath and displeasure.” That is the price, at times, of honest work. So be it.

Personal note: Marty (who was played by Liev Schreiber in the Oscar-winning movie, “Spotlight”) hired me as media columnist at the Washington Post, where I began in 2016, and encouraged me to track the overarching story of Donald Trump’s disparagement of, and attacks on, the independent press. Baron left in 2021; I departed the following year, far less certain that his successors would have my back as he always did.

On another subject, I want to praise and question two recent stories in the New York Times.

First, praise to Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak for their stunning scoop revealing the “shadow docket” in John Roberts’s Supreme Court. Here’s a gift link to the main story, which describes the politicized fast track that many consequential court decisions have been on over the past decade. The story is based on confidential memos the justices wrote to each other, obtained by the Times.

Kantor’s name may be familiar as one of the two bylines (with Megan Twohey) on so many of the investigative stories that held powerful men — including Harvey Weinstein — accountable for sexual misconduct; to a large extent, this coverage launched the #metoo movement. When I read some months ago that Kantor would be focusing her reporting now on the Supreme Court, I thought something remarkable might follow. Her reporting partner, Adam Liptak, has been covering the court for many years as his beat, and is an expert on its workings and its people.

In contrast, I’m baffled by the Times’s decision to devote its entire Sunday business cover to a fluffy feature story on Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who professes how much fun it is to be rich. Headline: “Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos?” Longtime journalist Katie Couric was among the most prominent critics, and you can read all about the reaction here. To get the flavor of the story, written by Hillary Clinton chronicler Amy Chozick, here’s a sample: “Unabashed rich-person exuberance is back with a Blue Origin bang, a Mar-a-Lago makeover of the White House, and a Zuckerberg rap cover. The Bezos marriage seems, at times, as much a cultural inflection point as a love story — the moment American money stopped apologizing and decided it might as well enjoy itself.”

I asked Assistant Managing Editor Patrick Healy why this deserved to be a business story at all, and one that on a recent Sunday dominated the business section front as if it were a matter of great import. Here’s his response

I would argue that writing about powerful and wealthy people in America IS a business story. Many magazines and trade newspapers do such pieces regularly as a window into how society, industry and culture intersect, and Sunday Business often does deep profiles of these people as well to take readers inside how they operate and think. In recent weeks, the business department of The New York Times has also written dozens of stories on the crisis in oil markets, the economic fallout from the war with Iran, inflation, the administration's feud with the Fed chairman, the impact of the war on Asia, Europe and global industry, the financial markets in the U.S., Asia and Europe, the price of gasoline in the U.S., the shortage of jet fuel, the impact of the war on retail, disinformation, AI, Anthropic's new Mythos model, crypto, private credit, earnings, EVs, shipping and the list goes on. We are providing a wide range of stories to our audience. Many readers found this piece compelling; other readers didn’t like some of the details and framing. The Times provided new reporting, information and insight about a part of our society, and let readers make up their own minds about it. That's what journalism does.

Readers, what say you? Is this a good use of resources? Is it worthy of the Times business section front on its best-read day? I would have found it far less objectionable in Styles as a celebrity profile; it’s an entertaining-enough read, but frothy enough to float away on the next spring breeze, and its celebratory tone seems more than a little tone-deaf at a time of extreme turmoil and income inequality in America. I’m also appalled by Jeff Bezos’s blatant cozying up to Donald Trump in order to become ever richer, and by his diminishment of the Washington Post, which he owns. That makes me a lot less likely to admire his lavish lifestyle. Gift link here.

Separately, I had a good chat with Parker Molloy for Long Lead’s Depth Perception newsletter, where we talked about billionaire press barons, about my former gig as Times public editor, and other media topics. Parker also writes an incisive newsletter, the Present Age, where she’s offering new subscribers 40 percent off to recognize her own 40th birthday. Here’s a link to our conversation.