Good review/article on the Review Surfboards site on a good SoCal shop...
Thalia Surf Shop
Established 1996
Way back when Kelly Slater was only on his 3rd World Championship; Nick Cocores started a surf shop sitting on a bluff over looking the Pacific Ocean on the corner of PCH and Thalia St. in Laguna Beach California. For those who know Laguna Beach is an upscale beach town with an huge "artisian" presence.
His theme was to bring unique and different expression of surfboards and clothing to the market. He stocked his friends clothing lines, and when everyone was going "Merrick", Nick focused on longboards and seventy style single fins. It took time but by 2000 they had a large inventory and had cut a niche in the surf industry.
Surfers who found Thalia Surf Shop where re-introduce to classic style long boards and other styles of boards by shapers who where expressing surfing away from contests and corporate identities. The boards include names like; Pavel, Rainbow and Campbell Bro's to name a few. Today they still carry these types of brand and keep introducing other impressive shapers like Mike Junod, Dano, Gato Heroi, Joel Tudor, Swift, Woven, Jon Wegener and Mandala Surfboards. Never heard of a few of those? Thats exactly what makes Thalia different, you go into the shop and your introduced to quality surfboards that are not in every shop.
All surf shops today sell clothing to make enough bread to keep the doors open. Believe it or not the margins on surfboards are not that great. With the ever rising cost for material, more time and work going into boards today the price tag on the board isn't getting anybody rich. Nick has continued his philosiphy of bringing in independent clothing designers. You won't find these designs, names or cache' at a department or chain store. The brands you might run into are; Brown Sound, Ando & Friends, Collectic, Hippy Tree, Rake and Thalia's own creations.
With the current trends of the surf industry and the concious world going more green, Thalia is offers several organic brands of clothing, surf wax wetsuits etc. But one really cool things the guys did, was during their recent remodel was they used all recycled material to build the shops interior. They used an old torn down fence to build the shelves and all the tables and furniture is from thrift stores. They got lucky and found an old glass display cabinet for the front counter.
