Surf Concepts to close after 29 years
Surf Concepts owner Eric Nakaji flanked by shop manager Dave Pollard (left) and assistant manager Jack Doolittle. Photo
Surf Concepts, the revered surf shop which was the first of its kind in Manhattan Beach, is closing after 29 years. Owner Eric Nakaji said this week that the shop has lost its lease.
“It’s been a heavy time for everyone around the Surf Concepts community,” the shop’s crew wrote Monday on Instagram, next to a photo of the storefront on Sepulveda Boulevard. “Unfortunately it’s true…We are closing our doors. It has been such a great 29 past years and we couldn’t have done it without all of the love and support in the South Bay community. Be sure to stop by to say one last goodbye and remember to support your local businesses!”
Nakaji, in an interview, cited many contributing factors — including increasing rents locally, the rise of online shopping, and the transformation of the surf industry, whose biggest selling surfboard in the world is the Costco Wavestorm.
“The smaller shops are kind of getting forced out,” Nakaji said. “I mean, it’s just tough.”
Nakaji said his overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude. He opened the shop in its original location on Manhattan Beach Boulevard in 1989 when he was only 24 years old. He was an avid surfer who had no background in running a business. Originally, he had a business partner, Ross Yamamoto, who had experience running a shop.
“I always wanted to do a surf shop,” Nakaji said. “I had a love for surfing, as did he, and Manhattan Beach needed a real surf shop, and we thought we’d just give it a run. We found a location and from then on just worked our butts off. For the first seven years, everything just went back into the business. We worked 24/7. We just thought there was a little void and a niche here.”
“Originally, a lot of friends were saying downtown Manhattan Beach would be a good spot, being close to the pier, but rents at that time were pretty outrageous compared to a mile off the beach. You get what you pay for, but at that time, like now, it was pretty tough to meet those rents. Now it’s even crazier, and all the little mom and pops stores seem to struggle downtown….I know Spyder just went in there, and I’m sure that contributed to our demise, but it’s just been a tough time for brick and mortar stores.”
Eric Nakaji at his Surf Concepts, which is closing after 29 years. Photo
Nakaji eventually bought out his partner, and for many years thrived, at one point opening a second shop in Redondo Beach. He lost the original location in 1996 and moved to a strip mall on Sepulveda, occupying the south end of the mall until moving to its north end in 2013.
“This strip mall where we currently are at — we kind of looked at it hard, because it was twice the size, and we were scared, but some of our sales reps thought we could pull it off so we just went for it,” Nakaji said.
Even as it comes to an end, Nakaji marvels at surviving for three decades. He realizes few small businesses have such success and credits the prevailing attitude of Surf Concepts, which was always about kindness and community.
“We’ve been blessed to have a good run,” he said. “A lot of it is customer service and the relationships we created and community involvement. A lot of praying.”
Longtime customer Alex Berg grew up near the original shop and remembers skateboarding to Surf Concepts as a seven year old kid and just hanging out at the shop. Nakaji and longtime store manager Dave Pollard, Berg said, were heroes to a lot of groms like himself.
“I grew up looking up to Eric and Dave, hanging out at the shop and seeing them out at El Porto — any day you’d go out there you’d see them,” Berg said. “You’d go to the shop and they’d stoke you out and give you stickers.”
Berg, like a lot of other kids, would eventually work at the shop as a teenager, then go the full cycle and become a full-fledged customer as an adult.
“My parents weren’t surfers, and the surf world is kind of hard to enter,” Berg recalled. “Eric made it much more accessible… I remember all the events, the tents outside the store, grilling out all day, giving everyone hamburgers and hotdogs for free, having local pros coming in, giving away gear. It’s marketing, but for Eric and that shop, it was more an effort of community than a sales pitch.”
“Eric is a great dude, so family and community-centered, and he always put that first. That is what made Surf Concepts the institution it became and allowed it to survive in such a challenging environment… I went from shop grom to patron to employee. It’s just been such a great part of the surf community — shaping it, really. [That community] doesn’t exist the way it did; it’s a different culture now. The products — everyone sells the same stuff, it’s all being peddled by the same companies. But really what a surf shop is, is the community it creates.”
Dozens of local surfers are sharing childhood memories of Surf Concepts — the first place one bought a wetsuit, the free posters all the groms used to score, the 25 cent Skittles always on hand at the shop. The comments read like an extended family’s remembrances during the loss of a loved one.
“When I was 11, Ross and Eric were so sick of me talking so much that they duct taped my hands to my feet and threw me into a board bag, zipped it up, and threw me in the back storage room,” wrote Tyler Krikorian. “A huge part of my childhood and legends in anyone’s eyes grew up in the area.”
Nakaji said he could never have imagined the life Surf Concepts gave him. He grew up in Culver City but always came to Manhattan Beach to surf. Now, he lives here and has raised two daughters here. He’s spent his adult life at the center of the surfing community and has been able to surf to his heart’s content. So the end of the Surf Concept story leaves him with mixed emotions.
“It is bittersweet,” he said.
He’s not sure what comes next, but he’s hopeful the next chapter will be as rewarding as the last.
“I haven’t pinpointed anything,” Nakaji said. “It’s just kind of surreal this is going on. I just got some feelers out. I’m a man of faith, so the Lord will have something for me.”