The Lincoln Park location (Image: Dentologie)

(Image: Dentologie)

The next startup ready to experiment with retail and service concepts on the densely populated blocks of Capitol Hill hopes to give the neighborhood’s busy young renters something to smile about.

Dentologie, a Chicago-based dental services startup backed and fronted by former Redbox CEO Gregg Kaplan, is making Seattle its first expansion market beyond the Windy City with plans for a new office amid the restaurants and shops of Capitol Hill’s very walkable Melrose Ave.

“We’re in downtown areas, street-level, branded locations, very convenient to where you live or work,” Kaplan told Crain’s Chicago Business in September as the company announced it had raised $25 million in investments to fund expansion in Chicago — and a new, unidentified market.

Turns out, that market includes your teeth.

Like the swarm of minute clinics that have found berths in the neighborhood to claim their share of the booming millennial health care market, Dentologie is pinning its hopes on “conveniently located offices, and tech-forward offerings like online and mobile app scheduling,” Crain’s reports.

“The tech-enabled and patient-focused practices combine hospitality with the patient experience, which translates to amenities like direct communication between patient and provider outside of the office,” the company says, “design-forward and aesthetically pleasing studios that lean more high-end retail experience than traditional dental office; and standout customer service that helps ease dental anxiety.”

The company employed around 180 people in 2023 — 30 of them were dentists (Image: Dentologie)

Dentologie is also looking beyond the city.

“We’ve been penetrating the urban market in Chicago and are excited to continue to expand,” Dentologie head of real estate Michael Zennedijian said earlier this year. “Data drives our decision making, and suburban locations are a natural expansion for us. We will grow upon a foundation of our 60,000 patients and, with a primarily Millennial clientele, some are making the transition from city to suburbs. We’re looking forward to doing the same.”

The Melrose at Pine Dentologie location seems ideal for the company’s urban aims.

Permits indicate the office is being lined up for the transformed former shop Euro fashion retailer Scotch and Soda opened in 2018 on the Melrose side of the massive Excelsior mixed-use development. Around the corner is the 2017-born Rapha Clubhouse and a mix of new retailers that moved in on the block that was once home to Le Frock, Edie’s, Wall of Sound, Spine and Crown Books, and, of course, Bauhaus.

Across the street is the Melrose Market which is adding a few changes of its own including a new Harry’s expansion in the one-time Sitka and Spruce space and a new subterranean nightclub venture.

Scotch and Soda shuttered in 2023 as CHS noted global brands struggling with new decisions for the Seattle market — Capitol Hill… or the mall?

(Image: Dentologie)

While the walkability is nice, the new Seattle Dentologie will also be adjacent the entrance to the mixed-use Excelsior building’s 280-vehicle underground parking garage.

Meanwhile, Dentologie isn’t alone in pinning its hopes of reinventing an industry on Pike and Pine. Just a few blocks east, retail giant Amazon just pulled the plug on one of its biggest experiments ever, closing its “Just Walk Out” pioneering E Pike Amazon Fresh grocery. We’ll have to wait to see what new experiment is next for that 10,000-foot space.

With plans for a summer opening, the Dentologie project probably won’t take as long as Amazon’s sensor and camera-filled grocery did to build out but city records show the permits for the change of use from retail to medical services are still being reviewed by the planning department. In Chicago, the startup has expanded to ten locations with two more on the way. For Dentologie’s plans for growth beyond its home city, the Melrose office could be the first of many more.

Dentologie is planning to open later this year at 1530 Melrose. Learn more at dentologie.com.

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