Russell Surfboards leaves Balboa Peninsula after 60 years fostering local surf culture
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A shop that served as a hub for the surfing community in Newport Beach for nearly 60 years closed its doors and moved out of the Balboa Peninsula on Tuesday, after its landlords nearly doubled their monthly fees.
Russell Surfboards has been near the corner of Balboa Boulevard and 23rd Street since 1967, after its late founder, Robert “Russell” Brown, got kicked out of his father’s garage for making too much of a mess while shaping fiberglass. He handed the business over to current owner JP Roberts about 15 years ago.
Representatives for the company that bought the property the roughly 1,000-square-foot store is on last May, Redwood West Property Management, told Roberts they appreciated its significance to local surf culture. They said they wanted to keep the shop in the building.
“Redwood West values Russell Surfboards’ long history in the community,” the company told the Daily Pilot in an emailed statement Tuesday. “We worked with them to explore options for continued occupancy, including flexible arrangements. Ultimately, Russell Surfboards chose to consolidate operations at its Costa Mesa location.”
Redwood West did not raise the shop’s base rent of $2,700, but the property management company did increase what are known as triple net fees from $600 to $2,900, bringing the surfboard retailer’s total monthly financial obligation to $5,600. The company also retroactively applied 11-months’ worth of higher fees and sent Roberts an additional bill for $17,500.
Roberts said he didn’t receive prior notification of the fee increase, and only found out about it after his scheduled rent payment bounced on April 1. He said it took about two weeks to get answers from Redwood West. By the time he did, they were unwilling to bring down his fees and it was too late for him to do anything other than pack up and leave.
A state law that went into effect last year known as the Commercial Tenant Protection Act requires landlords to give qualified small businesses 90-days notice for rent increases greater than 10%. But triple net fees aren’t technically rent; they cover additional expenses like insurance, maintenance of common areas and a wide variety of other expenses.
The fees recently added to Roberts rent were meant to pay for property tax incurred by Redwood West for the purchase of their building, according to business owner. He accused the property management company of taking advantage of a loophole to get around state law and pricing Russell Surfboards out of its home of the past 60 years.
“I still feel this nagging feeling, like it was on my watch that the shop kind of left,” Roberts said. “Now I get it, it’s out my control, realistically. But I can’t shake this emotion. I’m 41. My whole adult life has been in this shop.”
The shop on Balboa Boulevard was home to prolific surfboard shapers like Mike O’Day, and where others like Shawn Stussy and Roger Baltierra learned the craft, according to regular Tom Anderson. For decades, surfers of all ages and skill levels came together to trade stories and learn from each other.
“It’s almost like a mini surf museum,” Roberts said. “People would bring in their old boards, bring in their old pictures and it just collected naturally over time, organically … All the little groms would come hang out, man. They’d get their TK burger and get their greasy little hands all over the boards and I’d have to yell at them.”
Roberts said he was wandering aimlessly down the coast and getting into trouble with drugs when he stumbled into Russell Surfboards about 20 years ago. Brown became a mentor, taught him how to shape surfboards, gave him a job and helped him get sober. And Roberts was just one of numerous people whose lives changed for the better because of the surf shop.
“There’s just a very strong community of people who come here,” said Tommy Midnight, one of many longtime customers who have been stopping by Russell Surfboards since the 1970s.
“We’ve watched people go through cancer, watched children being born,” he continued. “This has been a gathering spot for years. It’s more than just slinging surfboards.”
Midnight became the last person to ever strip down to their boxers and try on a wetsuit at the Balboa Boulevard store. He and Anderson were among a handful of regulars who visited it Tuesday to help Roberts pack up old photos, posters and vintage boards shaped by Brown himself, along with whatever inventory hadn’t been scooped up by supportive customers over the weekend.
“It’s just going to be sad with this shop gone,” Midnight said. “Because, like, where else can come in, see a wetsuit, not have the money and just put a piece of tape on it and on good faith come back a week later and try it on in front of a bunch of weirdos? And not only that, this is the last of the ’60s single-label surf shops [on the Balboa Peninsula]. Like, there’s a Jack’s; Jack’s is like a Walmart.”
Some property owners have come forward to offer units for lease on the peninsula, but Roberts said those were likely out of the company’s price range. For now, Russell Surfboards is still taking orders and producing boards out of its factory in Costa Mesa. Roberts plans on converting a 300-square-foot front office space there into a small storefront where memorabilia from the old shop will be on display.
Moving forward, Roberts said he is “really going to try to find a physical place where people can still come and visit and soak in that nostalgia… It won’t be the same, but it’ll be something.”
