Timperley Aquatics, believed to be the oldest business in Timperley, closed its doors for the final time on Sunday after 42 years.
Owner Graham Ralston, 56, who bought the Stockport Road shop in 2006 but first worked there as a Saturday boy in the 1980s, said the closure was bittersweet but inevitable given the changing face of retail.
"There's a thousand and one reasons," Ralston told Altrincham Today. "Economics, people's shopping habits have changed dramatically. Trade isn't what it was. Pre-internet, people used to go shopping. Nowadays everyone relies on their phones."
The decision was ultimately forced when the building's landlord - the original founder who established the shop in October 1983 - sold the property to developers last November. With the lease ending and retirement beckoning, Ralston and his wife Joanne decided the time was right.
"I always had a plan of getting to my mid-50s and having options," he said. "If he hadn't sold the building, we may have stayed another few years, but it would have been more difficult trading in the current climate. It's just so hard."
What began as a small aquarium selling goldfish and tropical fish grew into something much larger, affectionately known locally as "Timperley Zoo".
The shop expanded across three buildings, eventually stocking everything from pond fish and parrots to snakes, lizards, tortoises and tarantulas.
Ralston, a lifelong Timperley resident who attended Wellington School and met his wife Joanne when they were schoolchildren, has dedicated most of his working life to the business.
After leaving briefly between 1988 and 1994, he returned and never looked back.
"I've lived and worked it for 30-odd years, every day," he said. "Since I've owned it for 20 years, it's been seven days a week really. Day off here and there, but when you're a small business owner, it's with you every day."
The shop became famous for its connection with Timperley's favourite son, Frank Sidebottom. The papier-mâché-headed comedian would open new sections of the shop and can still be found on YouTube sitting in one of their ponds singing.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the shop's recent history came in 2015 when Baby, a green-winged macaw worth £2,000, was stolen by a burglar who smashed through the window with a wheelie bin before cycling off with the bird on his handlebars.
After three anxious weeks, Baby was recovered and the culprit jailed - with the emotional reunification going viral on Altrincham Today's Facebook page.
"We trended above the Black Lives Matter protests on social media that day about a parrot that had been stolen," Ralston recalled. "That was traumatic at the time, certainly for the bird. But we got her back."
Generations of families have passed through the doors. "We've got customers from back in the 80s still coming in with their grandkids now," said Ralston. Even his own daughter, now 30, was inspired by growing up in the shop to pursue a zoology degree before becoming a primary school teacher.
As we were chatting in the shop, a customer who had visited on opening day in 1983 - and who supplied the glass for the original fish tanks - popped in to bid a personal farewell on the final day.
"One door closes, another opens," said Ralston. The building will be redeveloped into two retail units with flats above, pending planning permission. The couple, who also ran Timperley Florist next door until Covid, will now enjoy a slower pace of life in the village.
All animals have been rehomed over recent months, with nothing left unsold.
There's just one more important job for Ralston to undertake - driving Zazu, a blue and gold macaw, to Heathrow Airport before the bird is quarantined and then rehomed with its Saudi Arabian owners.
For both Zazu and the Ralstons, it seems, one journey is ending and another is just beginning.
