Local skate shop and gallery closes unexpectedly
Moriah Ratner | Staff Photographer
Although the Better Skate Shop and Art Gallery is closing, the owners said they still hope to have pop-up concerts, clothing releases and art shows.
Drew Shoup and Noah Hausknecht have one word of advice for anyone hoping to start a skate shop in Syracuse: Don’t.
Shoup and Hausknecht are the owners of Better Skate Shop and Art Gallery, a store that was once located at 210 E. Jefferson St., but has since permanently closed. In the past two months the shop’s front door was broken, and then they were allegedly robbed of around $3,800. The experience left the pair feeling heartbroken and skeptical of the potential for growth in Syracuse’s small business scene.
The shop’s recent luck gives some insight into its next move: The “Better” in its name may change to “Worse.” It will also operate on a show-by-show basis by hosting pop-up style clothing releases, concerts and art shows at different venues around Syracuse, rather than at one location, said Shoup, who also owns The Merchery, a Syracuse-based screen-printing shop.
Two of Better’s former owners quit in the past year, so running the shop became increasingly difficult, said Hausknecht, who is also a Woodshop Technician in the department of art and design at the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Once it was down to Shoup and Hausknecht running the shop, they said morale was pretty low.
They decided to close just four days before they actually shut the store’s doors for the last time, Shoup said.
“We already ordered $4,000 worth of spring stuff,” he said. “I just called Noah and said ‘Yo, on a scale of 1 to 10, how done are you?’ And he’s like ‘10,’ and I was like, ‘Cool, I’m 11.”
Better had a going out of business sale where it allowed customers to name a price on any goods left in the store. Some people who stopped by gave only $10 for a $40 shirt, while others paid more than the sticker price. It was an encouraging reminder of the love and support they still had in the community, Shoup said.
Few shirts were left over in the store from Slime Co., an apparel brand started by Simon Abranowicz, a senior design major at Syracuse University. Slime Co. clothes and illustrations feature primary colored Matisse-like figures and playful illustrations, such as a pink severed hand holding an iPhone showing a Kim Kardashian selfie.
Abranowicz said he credits Better for giving his and other SU students’ work better exposure.
“Before Better, everything took place at Spark (Contemporary Art Space), and that was pretty much the only venue for students to do stuff that wasn’t on campus,” Abranowicz said. “I guess I was surprised that they were closing because it was such a bummer, but I trust the guys and that they’ll keep doing a cool thing. It’s not just going to die out.”
Though Better has plans to move on, there are some parts of the store’s closing that Shoup and Hausknecht said they still have trouble reconciling with.
The store was intended to be a safe haven from the ongoing beef between skateboard crews in Syracuse. From time to time, skaters would question the store’s authenticity in the scene, wondering why they’d sell art if they called themselves a skate shop.
“You can be mad that we don’t have a hundred boards on the wall, but that T-shirt, I just sold 40 of them, and that paid rent,” Shoup said.
The two also said that if Better was built in a city other than Syracuse, it would most likely thrive. While the shop lasted, Shoup and Hausknecht said it was a chance for many of the city’s most creative minds to mesh together on shows and collaborations, working to bring the community together.
But as it stands, there isn’t a huge, core consumer market for locally owned skate shops in Syracuse, so Better Skateshop was unsustainable in the form of a storefront, Shoup said.
“There was a group of people that were genuinely sad that Syracuse won’t have a local shop, and probably won’t for a long time,” Shoup said. “If we couldn’t do it bringing 60 to 130 people in for shows, and it wasn’t worth it for us to do it, there’s no way.”
Published on February 9, 2016 at 9:59 pm
Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu
