A pet-friendly design encourages community dining

When Petco’s Chief People Officer Charlie Piscitello showed his 18-year-old son the company’s new 300,000-square-foot national support center, he was met with what should be considered high praise from a teenager. “He said, ‘This looks like Facebook; I would work here,’” Piscitello says. “That’s how you know you did it right.”

Piscitello and his team designed the pet-friendly San Diego headquarters to encourage employee interaction—especially in the cafeteria. “One of our values is the power of together,” Piscitello says. “We wanted a place that blends work and socialization.”

The 15-month build-out of the renovated warehouse was completed in mid-October, and Petco Café, which serves more than 300 meals a day, was finished in the final five months of construction. To offer additional seating options for employees, the center of the building houses a multilevel indoor park directly outside the eatery. Piscitello says the hope is that the cafe’s location near the indoor park makes it an employee destination. Skylights and a glass enclosure frame the dining area, and chairs and tables are lightweight and easy to move around so  people can customize their dining experience.

Although furry friends are welcome in most parts of the building—about 30 to 40 percent of Petco’s employees bring pets to work—health codes prohibit animals in the cafeteria. For those workers who don’t want to leave their animals behind at their workspace while they grab lunch, an outdoor seating area adjacent to the cafe allows pets to stay with their owners while they dine. A walking trail and three animal-recreation areas offer more green space where employees often walk their pets and eat, Piscitello says.

While designing the new headquarters, Piscitello talked with employees about what they valued most in a workplace. Many prioritized choice. The multiple dining settings and multistation layout at Petco Café provide a variety of in-house options, such as burgers made with grass-fed beef, flatbreads and tandoori-style cuisine, without venturing beyond the office park. “We wanted people to be in the workplace and have a high-quality experience throughout,” Piscitello says. The made-to-order culture also gives the staff time to catch up. “When people are waiting for food to be prepared, you hear them socializing,” he says. “As a chief people officer ,that’s a really great thing to hear, and [it] creates a great sense of community.”

Petco’s core values of community and connection have inspired sustainability initiatives throughout the facility, as well. The Southern California location makes water-saving kitchen equipment, such as low-flow sprayers, a must. Trays are eschewed, and employees are assessed a 25-cent markup on to-go containers to help minimize the company’s carbon footprint.