Captain Casey at the helm: Redwood City skate/barber shop at downtown’s cutting edge

“You OK?” he asked, almost taking on an Arthur Fonzerelli pose. “You want anything to drink?”

At first, the customer declined, but then later acquiesced for the hipster cocktail du jour — a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR.

Zalinsky, 36, is the owner of Captain’s Sk8 Supply, a seemingly underground barber shop and skateboard supply store that is one of Redwood City’s destination locations — and probably it’s most hidden gem.

The store, located on the corner of Broadway and Main Street, is a quaint mix between rockabilly fashion and skater attitude with a hint of ’90s punk rock, a flair made obvious by Zelinsky’s personal tastes.

“I grew up as a punk and rock kid, I got my economics degree with a focus in accounting and I realized it just wasn’t me,” said Zelinsky.

In the beginning, back in 2008, Captain’s was just a website, a simple place where lesser-known and underground brands like Santa Cruz Skateboards could sell their clothes to a niche customer.

But with a career change on the horizon, Zelinsky and his wife Jody were packed and ready to move to Austin when they found the perfect location for a brick-and-mortar shop in Redwood City.

“I had this original concept that I was going to try and do out there, had a job lined up out there and then this building opened and we saw it and were like, ‘this looks like a really good location. We should do it,’” Zalinskly said.

Redwood City’s art and cultural scene has significantly increased in the past four years since Captain’s opened up in 2011 — Zelinsky even labeled downtown as a ghost town — going from a deserted village-town to a cultural hub for the Peninsula’s bars and restaurants.

But even with that growth and boom in business, Zelinsky said that the city still lacks shopping options.

“There’s no retail downtown. It’s ‘let’s go eat and go home’ or ‘let’s go to a bar and go home,’” he said. “If you had a destination spot where you can kind of walk around, that would be amazing.”

And with more commercial stores, like Urban Outfitters, that made a successful business model out of selling unknown name brands, Zelinsky has turned to selling local designers and giving even high school kids a chance at selling their designs on consignment.

“When I started online, the market wasn’t saturated. There were vendors that I had that weren’t selling to the public. Now they’re selling directly,” he said. “I’m a huge fan of underground brands. Like I have local kids that want to sell their shirts and I put it on consignment for them so they can help build their brand.”

For more information go to captainssk8.com.