Last weekend was the grand opening of our friends at Deadend Magazine’s new flagship store in Salinas, CA. It was a great time, every time I make it down to Salinas I find myself wondering why I don’t make it out to this town more often. Their shop at 16 Midtown Lane seems to be in the perfect neighborhood, it’s a charming part of town that reminds me a lot of my hometown (as it was when I was a kid, at least). The street was packed with exactly the wide range of cars and bikes you’d expect for a Deadend event; customs, hot rods, and lowriders were parked in every open spot down Midtown Lane.
The Deadend Store was a great little spot, it was super clean and well laid out, and I know they’ll do great with it. As a former small shop owner myself I can definitely appreciate how much work, time, and thought goes into laying out a place like this. I wish them the very best with it and they did a great job making it happen. Running your own business is tough, and running a retail store is a serious commitment. In a lot of ways running a brick and mortar store is very different from maintaining an online presence, and it takes a lot of heart to make it happen. Being self-employed is unlike any other line of work where your marching orders come from above and you get to go home at the end of your shift and forget about work. Committing to having a shop, store, gallery, or whatever other physical location you are based out of takes that self-commitment to another level. These places become a member of your family, and they can be very much like a child; they will grow, mature, talk back, and need attention. You can learn quickly that you work for the store, not the other way around, but that can be a beautiful thing. There will be great days where you keep the doors open long after your posted hours, where you’ll meet people from all walks of life and get to experience them entering into the space you created and you get to actually watch them connect with what’s important to you. At the Deadend store this will happen quickly, within seconds of stepping in the door you are overwhelmed with art, cars, motorcycles, culture, and you feel like a part of it. It’s exciting to see such great pictures of so many important cars and bikes on the wall of such a neatly laid out store. In the same way Deadend’s photography elevates and decontextualizes parts of our car culture into something of an art form, the composition of this store achieves the same result. They juxtapose art made by their friends with their homegrown merchandise in a way that elevates the whole experience, you walk out of there feeling like a part of something special, proud to support the people who help make it happen; not just as a happy customer but as a part of the Deadend Family. This is something special, and you can tell that it comes from a place of true sincerity and passion.
It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog and listeners to the podcast that Juan and Jesus are two of my favorite people on the planet, their passion is infectious, and I am so deeply happy for them to take such a big leap forward with this shop. If you ever find yourself passing through Salinas I would highly advise stopping by and checking it out, it’s really worth it. In these days of Instant Gratification, faceless online orders packed by robots to be sent out anonymously with free shipping, and easy access to damn near everything online, I think a lot of people miss how important it is to get physically out of your comfort zone and enter a new space, interact face-to-face with the creators of the content you admire, and support the efforts they’ve made to make your life that much richer. Anyways, enough of my incoherent ramblings, here’s some pics. Thanks for reading.
