New skate shops sprouting up

Atlas, which opened at 209 E. Second Ave. in San Mateo on May 19 after five months of work by about 20 local skateboarders and other friends of the co-owners, filled a void left by closed San Mateo skate shops DLXSM (pronounced Deluxe San Mateo) and Environment skateboard store.

Atlas co-owner Ryen Motsek wants his business to be a skateboarder’s skate shop, and is proud of the carefully chosen selection and minimalist appearance of the store.

"We carry what we feel is the top notch stuff and that’s it,” Motsek said.

In addition to skateboarding products, the store does carry shoes, T-shirts and hats, and Motsek acknowledged the popularity of skateboarding-related style among his non-skateboarder customers.

Jason Strubing, who owns Skateworks in Redwood City, said it would be tough for a business to rely solely on skateboarding products, adding that the profit margin is greater on soft goods such as shoes and clothing than on hard goods such as skateboards and skateboard components.

"It’s too small of a demographic,” he said about skateboarding, "but it’s fortunate that footwear within our industry is popular for style.”

Strubing’s parents started Skateworks in 1988 in Santa Cruz and opened a store in Redwood City in 1995. A much larger store than Atlas, Skateworks also carries snowboarding products and several popular brands that Strubing said Atlas, which he called "boutique-like,” would certainly not sell.

Although the stores vary in size and selection, both Motsek and Strubing, skateboarders themselves, wouldn’t run their stores without one common characteristic: Their stores are owned and run by skateboarders, which they said is not the case for national mall-based corporation Zumiez.

"(At Skateworks), you get knowledgeable staff,” Strubing said, "as opposed to someone who says, ‘OK, cool, just let me scan that’ and then send you on your way.”

As an example of how an employee’s knowledge of skateboarding can help a customer, Strubing talked about fitting a certain sized board with appropriately sized wheels.

"Those malls don’t have skateboarders working there,” Motsek said, "just people who need a job.”

Matt Kilburg, store manager of Zumiez in the Hillsdale Shopping Center, said although the store failed to provide customers with skateboard savvy staff in the past, the company has adopted a policy recently that there must always be a skateboard technician on duty.

"At some times in certain stores, including this one, it has been like that where people didn’t know their ass from a toboggan,” said Kilburg, also a skateboarder. "… A lot of people did not know what they were talking about with skateboarding, so that’s why I’m here to change all that.”

Kilburg said he was hired in part due to his skateboarding knowledge and that he had more than any other employees at the time. Jake Scheierling, an assistant manager at Zumiez, also said his experience skateboarding was a factor in his being hired.

Kilburg acknowledged Zumiez gets a lot of business from everyday mall shoppers — "We are in a mall,” he said — but still estimated that 70 percent of the store’s visitors are skateboarders or have skateboarded before. Scheierling, however, estimated that 20 or 25 percent of the customers at Zumiez were skateboarders.

In comparison, Strubing estimated that about half of Skateworks customers own a skateboard and that about one third skateboard "day-in-and-day-out,” while Motsek said about 70 percent of Atlas customers own a skateboard and about half skateboard regularly.

Kilburg stressed that Zumiez, while carrying snowboarding products, surfing products, shoes and clothing, works to satisfy and establish credibility with the skateboarding community, sponsoring events and skateboarding demos. In addition, employees of Zumiez and Skateworks call each other occasionally to help customers find certain products.

Strubing agreed, but added that he would refer a customer to Atlas before Zumiez in most cases.

Two local skateboarders, taking a break from skateboarding at San Mateo’s Shoreview Skate Park, expressed their preference for Atlas and Skateworks over Zumiez.

"Their prices are really high and they don’t have the stuff I want,” said 18-year-old Redwood Shores resident Oshea Guevara.

Guevara added that Atlas’ staff is always helpful, although he only needed the assistance of skateboarders when he was first getting into the sport.

"I know them from skating,” he said of Atlas employees. "It helps to have a common ground.”

Andre Malabey, an 18-year-old Redwood City, called Zumiez a "wannabe” skate shop.

"They’re not original,” he said. "They sell everything.”

However, two Zumiez customers, while not loyal skateboarders, had some good things to say about the store.

"Zumiez has a good selection, they have a lot of sizes and more brands,” said 18-year-old San Mateo resident Johnny Simpkins, who said he skateboards only for transportation.

Monica Sandoval, an 18-year-old Redwood City resident who shops at Zumiez for the clothes, said that while Zumiez can be pricey, the only place to get the same products for cheaper is in San Francisco.

Despite their opinions about Zumiez, Strubing and Motsek pointed out the positive aspects of a skateboarding store’s mall-based equivalent.

"A lot of moms spend a lot of time in the malls,” Motsek said. "They’ll see a place like a Zumiez and they’ll be like, ‘There’s some skateboards. I can get one for little Riley’ … These kids may have never been introduced to a skateboard had it not been for a place like that.”

Scheierling, the Zumiez assistant manager, said the store does sell many skateboards to adults buying a gift for children.

"If there’s places in the United States where there’s not a community that can sustain an independent, stand-alone skateboard shop, and the only thing that happens to exist there is a Zumiez in the mall … It’s good if it gets somebody skating,” Strubing said.

Skateworks even plans to open a store in the Great Mall in Milpitas Aug. 15.

"The mall format is part of our expansion plan — to bring this type of a business, a true skateboard shop — to that format and see if we can give kids a choice between a corny mall store versus a true skateboard shop that happens to be in the same environment,” Strubing said.

Motsek said opening such a store would not be a bad idea.

"If there was a skate shop in a mall that was owned and run by skateboarders, that would be completely fine,” Motsek said, "but Zumiez doesn’t really live and breathe skateboarding in my opinion.”