Surf Berkeley

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Surf Berkeley was a Berkeley skateboard and surf shop originally located at 1527 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, CA, owned and operated by Dub and Suzanne ("Suz") Ogi. The shop opened its doors in the Spring of 1987, amidst skateboarding's first wave of popularity.

Though Surf Berkeley carried surf and later snowboard goods, the shop specialized in skateboarding by 1989, and was arguably the best skateboard shop in the East Bay for its first ten years of operation. Among its long-time patrons were Ron Allen, Mike York, Shamil Randal, Billy Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt from Green Day, as well as a handful of East Bay legends such as Rubin Orkin and Curtis Hsiang. Malik Cooper, who was a cast member in the tenth season of The Real World, worked at Surf Berkeley for a number of years.

In 1998, the shop relocated to a larger location at 1418 San Pablo Avenue. The beginning of the end came with the opening of 510 Skateboarding on Telegraph Avenue, a much hipper location with a great deal more foot traffic (opened in 1998), and then the much closer Destination 1440 (opened in 1999, a block and a half away), the latter armed with an extraordinary spending budget.

The combination of skateboarding's burst of popularity in the late 90's, the flooded market which resulted and the access to cheaper goods from large online suppliers drove the nail in the coffin for many longstanding mom and pop shops like Surf Berkeley, and it closed its doors for good in 2001.

Though Surf Berkeley never had a proper team, it is remembered by many older East Bay skaters as a friendly shop with reasonable prices and a great selection of decks and shoes, as well as a longstanding devotion to surfing and skateboarding, and without the hipster-ish endeavors that pervade skateboard shops now. Surf Berkeley's most successful financial period was between 1989 and 1991, when skateboarding's popularity was, incidentally, at its nadir.