by BOX » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:00 am
Yeah, that’s South Beach Surf Shop. The owner came into my work to take care of some business and spread the word shortly after they opened last summer. I overheard him saying that he used to coach the USA surf team and had moved up here to set up shop. Looked him up, saw that he was indeed connected to the USA surf team and figured I should stop by sometime. So one afternoon when I had some extra time I stopped in on my way home from work.
I thought the place was kind of hard to find. It’s tucked back in the Aquarium Village with a bunch of other little shops. I was expecting a store like Ossie’s, Ocean Pulse, etc., where I could just kind of browse and maybe pick up a bar of wax but it more resembled a big storage unit. Now, I was there only a few weeks after they opened so things may have changed, but basically it was a wide space with a roll-up storefront and racks of boards along the sides. There was a glass counter with fins and other accoutrements in it as well. Did not see any neoprene.
There was a decent amount of boards there at the time, but other than a few big wave guns they were mostly shortboards. I didn’t see any logs which is kind of what I was interested in checking out. The guy had me pegged as a kook right off the bat. I walked up and right away he asked me if I wanted to learn how to surf (yes, god yes, so badly…). He was offering a 2-hour lesson for $80 and you get film footage of yourself included. Didn’t think that was that bad based on what other shops in the area are offering. I talked to him for about two minutes about lessons until he turned and left me while I was mid-sentence to talk about boards with another couple who had walked in. I guess he figured I was a low-value customer. Since I took the break as an opportunity to head out without even buying that stick of wax, I guess he was right.
He seemed like a nice guy, though, and if you aren’t a kook like me and can actually hold a conversation about different shapes of HPSBs, then it might be a good place to stop in. Didn’t seem like the kind of place you’d swing by to just browse for t-shirts, stickers, or other touristy things like that, though. YMMV.