Membership-based dog park coming to East Nashville BarkPark to sell dog toys and treats, 8th & Roast coffee and Kernels Gourmet Popcorn

Lizzy Alfs | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption BarkPark, a membership-based dog park, is coming to East Nashville Calling all dog lovers: a dog park with pool parties, themed movie nights, WiFi, and locally sourced coffee is coming to the east side.

Calling all dog lovers: a dog park with pool parties, themed movie nights, WiFi, and locally sourced coffee is coming to the east side.

BARK, the New York-based company behind BarkBox, the popular monthly subscription service for dogs, has picked Nashville for its new membership-based dog park/retail experience called BarkPark.

The park will debut on Sept. 8 at 800 Meridian St. and run through November, with the long-term goal of opening a permanent outpost and expanding to other cities if successful.

“There really isn’t a ‘third space’ for dogs and their people in a way there is for humans,” said Allison Stadd, BARK’s director of retail marketing.

The BarkPark experience will include a regularly maintained green space, plenty of baggies for waste, dog toys and treats for purchase, coffee from 8th & Roast, snacks from Kernels Gourmet Popcorn, WiFi, on-site restrooms, covered seating for dog owners and weekly events such as comedy shows, dog-themed movie nights and dog pool parties.

Two trained staff members will oversee the park when it’s open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

“Experiential retail” — where brands offer their customers innovative in-store experiences or entertainment — is becoming more popular in the U.S. Earlier this year, RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) merged shopping and hospitality when it opened its mega Green Hills gallery complete with a café, wine vault, and barista bar.

BARK launched in 2012 as a monthly subscription service and the company later expanded into e-commerce at BarkShop.com. BARK also sells toys within its retail partner network, which includes Target. The company continues to design more than 30 new toys each month and ships them to more than 600,000 dogs.

BARK’s hope for BarkPark is that it seamlessly incorporates a retail component into a community gathering place where people can work and hang out while their dogs play. People can purchase balls, tote bags, a ball holder and paw wipes. They can also bring their own beer and wine.

“At BARK, we like to think about things uniquely and put our own spin on things. For us, it was never really going to fit the bill to just open a shop. BarkPark entered the picture as our way of creating an experiential retail experience in a very BARK way,” Stadd said.

BarkPark memberships give a dog and two humans unlimited access to the park from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. A day pass costs $19, a four-week pass is $48, and a season pass is $78. Multi-dog households receive 50 percent off an additional pass.

“We knew out of the gate we needed to make sure people’s money would be well spent. …We wanted to make sure we outfitted BarkPark with every single thing we felt, as dog people, is currently missing,” Stadd said.

As for why BARK selected Nashville for its first BarkPark, Stadd said the city is “extremely dog-friendly” and home to “modern dog parents that think of their dogs as part of the family.”

Reach Lizzy Alfs at lalfs@tennessean.com or 615-726-5948 and on Twitter @lizzyalfs.