17th Street Surf Shop

Located at the corner of 17th Street and Pacific Avenue in the heart of the Virginia Beach, VA Oceanfront area, 17th Street Surf Shop is the flagship shop of a skate and surf shop retail chain serving Virginia Beach surfers, skaters, locals, and tourists since 1970.  Though the original shop was located half-a-block away, the current shop is a spacious hangar-like building around 2500 square feet in size.  Filled with natural light from a ring of windows, air-conditioned, and cement-floored, the shop is so well-organized that it seems to be overflowing with merchandise but still very easy to move around.  And even though it has gone corporate, it still retains its skate, surf, and beach cultural identity.  You can't go out in public in Virginia Beach without seeing at least one person wearing a 17th Street Surf Shop t-shirt.

17th Street Surf Shop takes pride in its own line of shop t-shirts.  It sells t-shirts with dozens of original designs, which should make any surf shop t-shirt fan's heart race.  Having lived in Virginia Beach and often visiting family still there, I have been buying t-shirts from 17th Street (though mostly at its other Virginia Beach locations) for years.

But 17th Street is a full-fledged skate and surf shop, and surfers, skaters, locals, and tourists can find lots of merchandise other than shop t-shirts at its flagship shop or its other locations.  It carries most of the major surfwear brands, including Volcom, Hurley, O'Neill, RVCA, Quiksilver, Rip Curl, and Billabong.  It also stocks a wide range of surfwear accessories from various brands.  It has shoes (Vans, Emerica, Globe, Fallen, Nike, Converse, DC), flip-flops (Reef, O'Neill, Sanuk), hats (Element, OBEY, Oakley, Volcom, Hurley), sunglasses (Dragon, VonZipper, Electri, Arnette, Oakley, Toms), watches (Nixon, Rip Curl), and belts (Volcom, Vans, Hurley.)

(Credit: Mark Fuentez)

For skaterboarders and surfers, boards are a necessity, and 17th Street has a good selection.  For skateboarders, it offers Element, Sector 9, and Santa Cruz skateboards.  For surfers, it has Lost, Channel Islands, and 7S surfboards, but in addition it carries its own line of surfboards branded as Pride.  They are shaped by a Florida-based shaper named Greg Geiselman.  If a surfer needs a custom surfboard made, the shop will submit his or her specs to Geiselman.

For surf lessons, 17th Street partners with Billabong Surf Camp and the Jason Borte Surf School to offer 3-4 day summer camp sessions, though mainly for youths.  If you walk into any of the different shops looking for a surf lesson, they will probably refer you to the Jason Borte Surf School, which offers 1-on-1 or group lessons year-round.

Getting back to 17th Street's own line of shop t-shirts, every t-shirt will be double-sided with one of the many different shop logos printed on the front.  The official shop logo is a lightning bolt-shaped number 17 inside a circle border.  You'll find it on the website, promotional items, and even a few t-shirts.  But 17th Street shows a lot of creativity with its logo, not just varying its official logo but actually printing unique logos just for its t-shirts.

With rare exception, the blank t-shirt brand for original short-sleeve shop t-shirts is AAA (Alstyle Apparel & Activewear.)  The label is tear-off, so it's unclear exactly what AAA style is used, but it's probably 1301, a 100% cotton 6.0 oz/per square yard blank t-shirt.  Because of its corportate structure, it was hard to pin down the printing method used, but most likely dark t-shirts are printed by heat transfer and white t-shirts are screen-printed.

Because of the incredible selection offered by 17th Street and a constant turnover of designs, I didn't want to highlight just one t-shirt.  Below are some photos of the variety of t-shirt designs currently to be found at 17th Street (these photos taken at Lynnhaven location.)

(Credit: Mark Fuentez)

Surprisingly, the 17th Street Surf Shop website appears to be out-of-date, and even if it is up-to-date there isn't much of a selection.  You can't call to order by phone, so if you want to get your hands on one of the t-shirts you see in the above photos, you'll have to visit one of the shop locations.  There are 4 locations in Virginia Beach, 2 in Chesapeake, VA, 1 in Wilmington, NC, and 1 in Kill Devil Hills, NC.  You can find their exact addresses at the 17th Street website.  Store hours vary.

Here's a look inside the flagship shop:

Written by Anthony Fuentez.  You can follow Anthony on Google+.