Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020 - 50

HEAD IN THE GAME
OC Snowsports
hopes to be the
go-to ski and
snowboard shop for
Orange County's
adventure athletes.

SNOW LOVERS IN THE SUN BELT

Much to the chagrin of mountain-town retailers, ski and snowboard shops in warm climates have been cashing
in on customers for eons. Here's how four of them have figured out how to thrive far from the snow. By Tracy Ross
Costa Mesa, California

Why would anyone open up a ski shop in
Orange County? "Well, we are the extreme
sports capital of the world," responds OC
Snowsports owner, Darryl Longabardi. "We
have skate, Shaun White, and motocross. Not
to mention we're five hours from Mammoth
Mountain Ski Area, and short flights from
Tahoe, Park City, and Alta." That's why there
have been SoCal ski shops since the '40s and
'50s. Plus, vast numbers of Californians in this
region spend their cash on luxuries like skiing
and snowboarding.
Seeing all those potential customers, the
late Norbert Olberz opened 55 Sport Chalet
shops in SoCal, NorCal, Arizona, Nevada,
and Utah between the early '60s and late '90s.
His foundational gear? Skis, poles, boots, and
bindings. To diversify, he added scuba and
mountaineering equipment. It worked un-

50 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Winter 2020

til 2016, when the then-publicly held Sport
Chalet filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to Longabardi.
That left a "huge void" in the market, says
Longabardi, who felt confident he could fill it.
In November 2018, he opened OC Snowsports,
geared toward customers who aren't price
shopping. "They're looking for a service-oriented experience with experts who know skis,
skiing, and boot-fitting," he says. Good thing
OC is staffed by lifelong skiers. But what none
of them can do is control the weather, which
averages 67 degrees by day in February. "If
the waves are good, people are surfing," says
Longabardi, "but if they know it's snowing,
they're thinking of skiing."
Longabardi argues it's easier now than it was
in Olberz's time to get surfers stoked for skiing,
with ski movies and social media and multiresort products like the Ikon Pass in the mainstream. "People in SoCal are crazy to do something different every month, so if the snow is

good in Idaho, say, they're heading to Idaho," he
adds. That's how the sales keep refreshing and
OC skiers keep their thighs burning.

TROY'S SKI LUBBOCK
Lubbock, Texas

Contrary to what you might think, Texans
love skiing so much that they'll wake up on a
Saturday morning, jump in their trucks, blast
some Taylor or Blake, and make a six-hour "suicide run" to Taos, just to get into the white stuff.
But according to Philip Howard, the owner of
Troy's Ski Lubbock gear shop, a good lump of
those same people don't want to shell out more
than $29 for a pair of ski bibs. Enter his store,
which just celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Originally called Ski Skeller ("It's a weird
name, I know," says Howard.), it was opened by a
guy named Dick Regan in Midland, Texas. In the
late 1960s, Ragan expanded it to six locations in
El Paso, Midland, and Lubbock. "There's still a

Courtesy OC Snowsports

OC SNOWSPORTS

Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020

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