F1rst Surf Supply Company Relaunch

Photography by Ryan Troy on June 21st, 2013 in Lifestyle, Sports

Miami Beach, FL – June 20, 2013 – International Surfing Day was celebrated by all the surfers on the beach at F1RST SURF SUPPLY COMPANY. The South of Fifth surf shop celebrated the occasion with the official relaunch and remodel party thrown by owners and South Beach locals, Mark Gamez and Christian De La Iglesia. The space has expanded from 860 square feet to 1600 square feet, with an exclusive, all members stand-up paddleboard locker room called the F1RST Surf Shop Watermans Club. The space is full of cool South Beach surfing history with archival photos and original boards on display. The party featured brew by Mucho Aloha and had the exciting Miami Hea t NBA Finals Game 7 being shown. See what the owners had to say about the exciting relaunch below.

Mark Gamez

“We were both excited and nerve-racked at the same time to do our remodel party. Chris and I made the decision to have our official remodel launch party on June 20th, which is International Surfing Day across the globe. Summertime is usually our flat season or slow season for surfing in South Florida, so our goal was to give the locals a place to celebrate surfing on International Surfing Day.” – Mark Gamez

Christian De La Iglesia & Mark Gamez

“Mark and I are stoked to offer brands that you won’t easily find in your everyday shops. A lot of our companies come from Bali, Australia and, of course, California, such as The Critical Slide Society, Deus Ex Machina, Iron & Resin, The Brothers Marshall, Vans Brixton and Insight. We only offer the best surfboards available on the market such as Super Brand, Channel Islands, Wave Riding Vehicles, Firewire, and Lost Surfboards. We also exclusively carry JP Australia SUP’s. Over 100 models are available in house, and we have the capabilities to custom-order any surfboard you are looking for.” – Christian De La Iglesia

“We doubled in size (1600 square feet), which meant doubling the inventory. We didn’t want to simply showcase your everyday brands you would find at every other surf shop up the East Coast or at the mall–not that there’s anything wrong with that. We wanted brands that you can’t get at the mall. We let the merchandise tell the story and not a big logo or icon telling you ‘Hey there! We’re the cool brand you want.’ We went for a classic California, wood cabin-esque look when designing the shop complete with a bar and barstools. We wanted to make the place feel more like home than a shop in the mall.” – Mark Gamez

“The most important part of our design is our private members locker room. We dedicated a portion of our expansion to offer storage for members and their Stand Up Paddleboards. We were the first on South Beach to offer SUP sales and rentals, as well as storage. We quickly learned how burdensome the size of these boards were and offered on-site storage for SUPs. We decided to offer a premiere storage on-site for VIP members to have around-the-clock secured access to their SUP boards at their convenience starting in August 2013. We haven’t even started to advertise it, it’s just by word-of-mouth, and we are probably going to be sold-out by the time we launch in August.” – Christian De La Iglesia