We’ll try to post a detailed history of the store soon..

but to keep it short: the network was started in 1995 by manuel and the riders of the then defunct Small World store, and quickly rose to become the premier address for everything skateboarding-related in zurich.

The store was born out of a need for sponsorship and product, we were around 17 years old by then, and living our dreams. maybe it wasn”t fair to the old guys who already bet their families income and stuff on this type of money, it, but until this day we all feel that this shop wouldn’t have come to exist if we didn”t think the business here was going in the wrong direction at that time.

If theres any debate about that, then it remains a fact they couldn”t keep up with the pace we were developing and moving in and around the skateboarding world, evident by extensive growth of coverage and infrastructure that followed..

So in the meantime we”ll just add to this list of random facts and circumstances of our history:

• We each got around 6 Boards a year from our distributor or shop sponsors sponsors (we still thank you though).
• in 1995 A board”s retail price was 129.- SFr. and the Griptape cost 20.-. At this time the Dollar rate was at a all-time low of 1.11 SFr.  When we opened our retail Price for a board was 100.- SFr. 10 Bucks for Griptape.
• We started out buying boards for their retail price from FTC (what”s up John and Kent) for the standard US retail price, UPS’ed em here and paid SFr. 18.- less than from the swiss distributors We gave unlimited stuff to our riders. Ask Sebo and Sven what unlimited means. It was worth it, by now we actually get boards back from them.
• We probably gave away as much product as the swiss distributors did. combined. In the meantime the city”s market volume of hardware and direct skate related goods pretty much quadrupled.
• By the time the dollar hit an alltime high of around 1.78 Sfr. in the early 2000”s, the retail prices reached the same level as in 1995. This time we were the first to raise them.. I still have a graph of this somewhere. it says everything.
• The entire swiss Industry held a “meeting” at BESPO Tradeshow in 1998 or 1999 with the sole topic of putting us out of business. We were out skating that day.
• Their following combined 5-year efforts couldn”t put the store out of business but the collateral damage destroyed a big part of our scene”s foundation, and left the shop crippled until this day. It also made me pay off  a hundred grand of debt that accumulated in that time. I’m stil working on the second.
• During the time we manufactured boards for Next Skateboards we were accused by our competion to secretly manufacture fake Toy Machine (no offense to TY) decks. it wouldn”t been half as disrespectful it it were like Henry Sanchez boards or something.
• I once wrote the industry a 30-Page letter to describe the difference between our businesses and reasons people buy from us and not from them. They were devastated, but needless to say things changed for the better as they actually followed a lot of advice that was “given” to them. Maybe i”ll reprint it here one day for the sake of humor, knowledge and sarcasm it contains