Duluth’s ‘Wild Birds Unlimited’ To Close Storefront, Try Online-Only Business

DULUTH, Minn. – Wild Birds Unlimited, the only bird feeding franchise store in northern Minnesota, is closing its storefront in Duluth next month. But the owners are going to try to keep doing business online.

Misty Bristol has owned Wild Birds Unlimited since 2013 in the Burning Tree Plaza. She bought the business from longtime owner Bob Heller, who opened the original store on Mall Drive in the early 1990s.

Bristol says although business is doing really well at the moment, continued staffing shortages and a new five-year lease offered to keep the space forced her to make the tough decision to close.

But she says she’s going to enjoy every bit of these final weeks with her loyal customers face to face.

“We are going through seed like crazy, I’ve never had a season like this. I can’t keep anything in stock right now it’s been great. I enjoy all of our customers, hearing their stories about all the birds they get in their backyard, it’s just been a joy to have this store,” Wild Birds Unlimited Owner, Misty Bristol says.

The storefront will close on April 28. Bristol and her husband are doing a sixth-month trial as an online only business through www.mywbu.com/duluth. If that venture takes off, they may keep at it.  But selling the business is also an option if someone else wants to open a storefront again.