After a trip to his local feed store, Dean MacElroy developed a dream of opening his own business that focused on giving customers a memorable experience.

Dean and his wife, Lezlie, turned that dream into fruition with the opening of D&L Farm and Home. The D and L stand for Dean and Lezlie, D&L Marketing Manager Jasmine Hook said.

After the first location opened in Aubrey in 1988 and Celina in 1998, McKinney got its own D&L in 2004. This store was followed by others in Gainesville and Sanger.

In 2018, D&L relocated its McKinney store into a newly built facility located at 1502 N. Church St.

The store offers a variety of products, from horse and livestock tack and feed to pet supplies, lawn and garden care, live animals, a dog wash station and more.

“We try to have a well-rounded and relative product mix,” Hook said. “… Our No. 1 focus is making sure that our customers have a great experience here.”

D&L employees work closely with product suppliers and participate in weekly trainings to learn about the products they sell and to know what works best in every situation.

“[We work on] continuing our education and employees’ education [by] making sure we are all very knowledgeable in all of our products, making sure we can be solution-oriented for our customers and making sure we find them the right products that fit their need,” Hook said.

This year, D&L became a second-generation family-owned store as the MacElroys turned over ownership to their daughter and son-in-law, Emily and Matt Saller.