Maya McFadden Photos
Evan Jones outside Plush's soft opening (above). Below: Opening night party.
Skateboarders from New Haven and beyond gathered on Orange Street for the soft opening of the city’s second community skate shop.
The shop is called Plush. It is housed at 96 Orange St. between Chapel and Center Streets.
The shop’s owner trio hosted the soft opening celebration Friday evening, introducing Plush as both a shop and a new skateboard brand. (The store officially opens to the public this coming Thursday.)
The developing shop is less than a block away from the recently opened Devil’s Gear skate shop.
Dozens of skateboarders gathered at the opening.
In between blaring hits like “Welcome to Jamrock” by Damian Marley and “Children’s Story” by Slick Rick, DJ Dooley‑O labeled Plush the “hottest skate shop in town” over the microphone.
“Get your grip tape … trucks … barracks … and don’t forget your decks right here,” Dooley‑O said.
With each purchase, customers received a free Plush sticker.
As the sun went down Friday, skaters gathered inside and outside the shop to hang out while enjoying free pizza, sparkling water, and beers.
Some took breaks in between skating to dance to “Jump Around” by House of Pain, “Tru Master” by Pete Rock, and “Daytona 500” by Ghostface Killah.
Skaters created makeshift “obstacles” out of street signs and orange traffic cones.
Skater friends Dzik Matambanadzo, Mead Faranz, and Simon Wolinsky.
Dzik Matambanadzo, 16, who lives in Brooklyn, couldn’t miss the opening of Plush and the chance to meet professional skateboarder Trevor Thompson Friday. Matambanadzo visited New Haven for the weekend to spend it skating with his friends and to pick up a new board in support of the newly opened shop.
He joined his friends Jackson Brown, 15, from Branford, Simon Wolinsky, 16, from New Haven, and Mead Faranz, 15, from Milford, at the soft opening event. The trio brought their boards out and joined the crowd of dozens of skaters practicing in the middle of Orange Street.
Matambanadzo, who started skating at 6 years old, said he has kept with the hobby because it gets him out of the house and never gets boring.
Wolinsky said he also started skating at 6 years old, because his friends loved skateboarding. This summer he got dropped off at Edgewood Park almost daily to practice and hang out with his friends.
“Being at the skate park helped me learn how to socialize with adults,” Wolinsky said. “I’ve got better relationships with teachers and my parents because of it.”
Faranz started skating four years ago. After his friends introduced the sport to him he realized “how freeing it is.”
“It’s something to get us out of the house instead of being inside bored playing games,” Faranz said. “And it’s a good community to socialize with, because it’s full of different people you wouldn’t really reach out to usually.”
Mead Faranz ollies off ramp.
While practicing his wallies and kick flips off a portable metal ramp set up outside the shop, Evan Jones, 22, described skateboarding as a sport for “people who don’t really fit into the mold” because they also have artistic and creative desires.
Jones, who has been skating since he was 9, said he has kept with the hobby for more than a decade because the skater community is non-judgmental and teaches you about life.
Evan Jones.
“Every day I have to balance school with wanting to skate all the time,” Jones said. “And I translate my work ethic with skating to school. If I didn’t skate, I probably wouldn’t be in school.”
Living in Ridgefield, Jones said, he has to travel out of town to get new parts for his boards. “I’ve come to terms with knowing that if you live out here and want to skate and have fun, you have to drive a minimum of 40 minutes,” Jones said.
The new shop is owned by Alexis Sablone, an architect and professional skateboarder who competed in the 2020 summer Olympics skateboarding event; Ben Berkowitz, founder of SeeClickFix and a local skateboarder; and Trevor Thompson, a Milford-born professional skateboarder.
Thompson and Sablone grew up childhood friends with a shared love for skateboarding. The two had a dream of opening a business together. The final piece to complete their dream was linking up with Berkowitz, who runs the shop’s operations and finance divisions.
Thompson said his goal is to use his professional connections to give back to the community. He described Plush as having a “core grounded in the skate scene and community.”
It wasn’t until Friday afternoon, when making the first Plush sale, that Thompson learned to use the register, he said. He checked out customers and fans throughout the day, offering customers buying boards free strips of grip tape.
The shop will be stocked with the “most sought-after brands” like Theories of Atlantis Inc., WKND Skateboards, and Sci Fi Fantasy, said Thompson. It also sells shoes, pants, and shirts for skating.
“Skate parks have become a place for communities to grow,” Berkowitz said.
Before deciding on the Ninth Square shop, the owners looked at spaces on Broadway and Chapel Street. They began work on the brand in January.
The shop’s white walls are decorated with a back wallboard display featuring dozens of boards traveling toward the 16-foot ceilings.
Following the Friday soft opening, Plush hosted a jam outside the shop for skaters to reconvene.
“There’s things in Plush that you can’t get anywhere in Connecticut,” Berkowitz said.
Mark Dunning, 27, of Groton, described the skate scene in Connecticut as “small but thriving.”
Dunning has been skating for the past 20 years and is a huge fan of Thompson. “He’s done so much for the community and really shed light on what skateboarding is rooted in,” which is community, Dunning said.
In 2002, Dunning said, children’s shows like Rocket Power introduced him to the excitement of skateboarding.
“I just liked the difference of it and that it wasn’t your typical sport,” he said. “You can have individuality and creativity.”
Mark Dunning.
Dunning picked up a board from “Krooked Skateboards,” a brand he has wanted to purchase from all year. He left with the last board in stock in his size.
“Skating has really saved my life in many ways,” he said. “Without it, I would not be on the right path.”
Since taking up skateboarding, Dunning said, he has stayed out of trouble, focused, and open-minded about meeting new people.
“At a young age, I was learning to really figure out different people,” he sad.
Skateboarding has inspired Dunning to get into other hobbies like music, painting, and drawing.
“When a shop like this opens, the possibilities are endless for all of us,” he said. “It’s not just stuff for our board, but it’s new relationships, connections, and inspiration.”
It’s wonderful that New Haven now has two skateboard shops, but do they have to be so close together, and so far away from the skateparks? Why not a skateboard shop in Westville and one in the Newhallville/Dixwell neighborhoods?