I was interested in why the surf shop experience here on Oahu seem so disappointing?
Whenever I visit California, I can always find a surf shop that sells thought-provoking, unique, and creative shapes off the rack that you can get excited about. I noticed when I was in Santa Cruz, SB-Ventura, LA, and San Diego, I was impressed by the surfboard inventories. I always had fun looking for used boards.
Here, especially in Honolulu, it seems you walk into a shop, and well, it’s just not the same. You’d think that for a state that has a gazillion surfers, you might find some shops that are representative of the surfboard part of the surfing experience. There are a lot of crummy boards on the racks here. Not exciting.
Having a custom board made for you is great. There are great shapers here, popular and underground. However, what if I just felt like buying a last minute board for a trip or something? Where would I go?
I stumbled upon the re-opened Tropical Blends surf shop a few weeks ago. Basically all they sell are surfboards and a few accesories. They carried a mixture of state of the art shortboards by Pyzel, longboards and some retro shapes by Mike Casey, Randy Rarick and Pat Rawson. The shop had shut down for over 20 yrs and opened again last august. The shop opens up into a surf oriented at gallery next door with works from some famous and not so famous artists. I think its definitely worth checking out.
foamdust- I incidentally stumbled on the grand opening of the shop while I was getting a subway sandwich across the street on Queen Street. I thought it had a nice representation of boards. Art gallery a nice addition to the shop. Some nice glassjobs, too.
He was selling at Surf Garage and Da Surfahaus under that label months ago.
Personally I still check the boys out at Tropical Rush and used to love SurfandSail and Strong Current before they went upscale. Fred Pattachia Sr’s Hawaiian Surf shop used to be a regular stop for me in Haleiwa before they went out of business.
Other than that Hale Nalu and BK Ocean Sports are where I can still find a gem every now and then especially Parmenters.
Other than SurfnSea, I think Tropical Rush has some of the best off the rack selections available on the island.
Kimo’s in Kailua and Country Surfboards in Laie also have a decent board selections at reasonable prices.
If you really want a shock, go to the factory at Campbell Industrial Park and ask them to take you in the back to choose a board. You’ll see every boady destined for every major shop in the island back there… Hundreds of boards being shipped world wide for a variety of labels. The Local Motion factory is in Waikele near Costco.
Casey, Rarick, Rawson and Pyzel remind me of SurfnSail’s choices maybe I should check it out one of these days.
I love board shops especially since it’s all about clothes and accessories now a days.
Tropical Blends is owned by Jim Hayes. He was part owner of Tropical Blends before it closed in the early 80s. He was involved with some early video productions with International Sports Productions which released a series of tapes featuring a lot of ASP meets around the world. You should stop by his shop and let him tell you his life story, quite interesting. I think you’ll be impressed with the boards in stock, long, short and some stuff in between. Kind of pricey though. He mentioned he might be stocking some Campbell Bros. Bonzers too. The adjoining art gallery is owned by Jon Damm, a Pipeline charger in the late 70s-early 80s period. There were a few Pat Tobin originals and prints that were really nice.
I like to browse shops and feel rails, sight rockers, etc. when I’m looking for inspiration to shape a board. For sure Surf n Sea and Tropical Rush have a good selection to choose from. I like looking at the BKs in Haleiwa. Right now I have 4 blanks cut out waiting to be finished, a longboard, 7’0", 6’6" and 6’0" fish.
Might check the new shop out but nice boards+high price isn’t my calling right now especially with any additional shop overhead thrown in. My rough guestimate based on square footage occupancy cost, any thing sold downtown must include a 20-30 percent overhead mark up just to equalize the COLA for being located downtown.
That why I like to shop in the boonies… Number one they don’t have the traffic and number two their floor space cost is somewhat less… That’s why George Ku performance longboards are $500-600 in Haleiwa and $1000 at RussK’s near Waikiki.
Anyway it would be an interesting to meet the owner as you said…
I’m like you…
Two 7’3"s nearing completion one foam and one EPS with Bert’s balsa rails,along with a stringerless home depot 6’3"x22"x2" modern fish (copied my bushman) and 8’ 2lb EPS egg for my brother being wood lammed at CMPs as we speak. We also have 6 more Home Depot 2’x8’x3" EPS blanks ready to rocker glue up and playing around with…
I talked to Roy (RVs Used Surfboards) and told him I need to dump off another bunch of my collection to make room for all these balsa lam projects… Sadly I may have to part with my 6’6" Brewer fish and 7’0" Parmeter Vector and maybe a Parmenter 9’0" longboard to make room… It’ll break my heart as the other day I ran into a grem at Barber’s carrying my old Point Blanks Mako with a dozen or more dings all over it covered with duct tape… Kind of made me both sad and sick since I when sold it at RV’s it was brand new… I had it for three years and kept it in pristine condition other than the slight yellowing of the epoxy…
Anyway be interested in seeing your projects posted and that photo with you and Curren was awesome. I still remember seeing him in the old Rossevelt movies as that little boy surfing the Ranch when I was getting out of high school. Never did see much of his pro career until much later.
al Rush closed down, or did they just move from their old shop off Ward? I used to always tell people to bring their repairs there because they do such a good job.
I think Jay Rush of Hawaiian Rush is still doing his shaping/repair thing on Kawaiahao St on the Eva Side of Ward Ave. He used to be over by Nordstrom Rack, but he picked up and moved. He’s still doing first-class repairs with great color matches.
Yeah I bought a 9’ 2" Denis Pang waimea gun with a 2+1 setup from that guy and he hooked me up. The Brewers in there are beutiful and crazy expensive. I would kill to have Brewer gun but for now i will have to settle for just foaming at the mouth when i see one.
I often enjoy SurfnSea. Where else can you get a Star fin in this world? The only problem is my neck gets stuck in the “look at the cealing” mode. I would love to get a template or two from some of those classic boards.
I agree that most of the O’ahu shurf shops carry the same ol stuff. I was asking about bonzer designs and the help was clueless. Next time I will give the ones mentioned above a visit.
Maybe you guys can help me with another challenge? I met two very nice folks out at Queen’s on my last day. Jennie (who was a Santa Cruz girl gone local) and a older gentleman named Cuban (sp?). Jennie said that I could drop her a line on the Waikiki Beach Surf Club web site but I have had no luck locating the correct URL.
Walking into a T&C or HIC shop here is like walking into Pac Sun in Cali, only there’s some stock surfboards. It’ll probably take a couple years before bonzers find their popularity (again) over here. That’s how it was with the Classic fish. Very few local shapers can truly do it to form, though I’ve seen some nice ones here and there in the water.