new store update

May 4, 2007 | Category: Uncategorized

o.k., i apologize for the lack of photos. i don’t yet know if we can post pictures here, and i don’t know how to make a link to them. Still, i’ll try to answer some questions people throw at me every day about our move to the new location.

here’s the plan, so far:
we will be moving our main store, the one down by the ferry termianl, in late June, early July. we’ll still keep the old location open, but in a smaller way (skates, shoes, men’s clothing, as well as discounted snow gear)

the new location will be in a place called Alley24. it is a newly constructed building, at the corner of Thomas and Yale Ave. North, directly across the street (west) from REI. There’s a great coffee shop in the building, Vivace, and a Mad Pizza next door. (there’s also the South Lake Union grill and a deli on the same block) Y’all have seen REI from the freeway, and most of you have been in it. They sell a ton of different sports/activities in there, and yes, snowboarding is one of them. they are successful at what they do, and we’re excited to be their neighbor. and we obviously think we can give people a better experience when shopping for a snowboard, or we wouldn’t have made this move. and, they have a great parking structure.(for the record, alley 24 has underground parking, and we are planning to provide validations for our customers).

the new space will differ dramatically from our current O.G. location. for one, this building has NO WOOD in it. and, 3 walls are floor-to-ceiling glass windows. also, the layout is like a big chunky “L”, as opposed to our current labyrnith/maze of rooms and passageways. many people have expressed , i don’t know, a small sadness over the closing of the Waterfront store, because it has a tremendous amount of character and history (as much history as you can claim for a young sport in only 17 years). trust me, i share in that sense of loss; we moved here from L.A. in 1990, my new bride and i, not knowing ONE person. we opened the shop and hit the ground running, figuring a lot of shit out along the way. lot of good memories, lot of good people have passed through there, and this seems like a great time to shut it down and build something new and, hopefully, better. think about it, isn’t it better to go out at the top of your game than when you’re injured, limping along? that viaduct is looming large over us, and the building we’re in has a sketchy future. we don’t have a lease there, and we just can’t commit to another season.

the new space at Alley24 is a little smaller, but we’ll still offer the same variety and breadth of product. you’ll see familiar faces, our favorite art, and i’m sure you’ll smell the distinctive odor of spilt beer some mornings. you may also notice a happier staff, as our currrent situation has people knocking knees as they type on laptops, a stocking system with some death-wish ladders, and a parade of crackheads trying to “return” merchandise they took off the rack a minute earlier. we’ve worked hard to eliminate these issues. except the crackheads. they’re the life of the party.

personally, i’m scared, but not scared shitless, just scared in a good way, a good nuerotic way that makes you think and focus and obsess on something so much, that eventually, all else falls away from your consciousness, as we get closer, and AG and i and friends and staff get our hands in there, building, designing, creating something where there once was nothing. it’s not many times in life you get to take something you know so intimately, dismantle it, and try to re-build it different and better. it should be a fun challenge, and hopefully we’ll learn from it and grow and i won’t push the City of Seattle building inspector in front of a bus. it won’t look like the old place, and whatever it looks like that first week or month will only look better the next month, and 6 months down it will look better still, but really, expect a year for us to even start to feel like we got our shit together, i just know myself and how these things can go.

o.k., sorry to ramble. please feel free to ask questions or post comments here. i’ll do my best to answer them. and you won’t hurt my feelings, but it’s o.k. if you want to. go ahead and try. i understand.

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