The Vintage T-Shirts Expedition

Local, Hawaiian celebrity, Sam Choy, who also happens to be a family friend, has offered to star in our little commercial. For those of you not familiar with his charisma and celebrity status in the islands, all we can say is ‘This is BIG’.

Sam Choy is a Hawaiian icon and a local treasure, and we’re so grateful for his generosity. We’re also dying to see how this is going to turn out.

Matt’s back in Kona this week, signing up new places, putting some finishing touches on the store and, get this, filming our first commercial. All of our Hawaiian business-owner friends have recommended doing an ad on the local TV station, Big Island TV, and we’re actually filming next week. It’s very touristy, but hey, tourists like cool t-shirts and they need to know where to find the coolest ones in town.

Every few months we evaluate our t-shirt designs to see which ones people seem to like (read: buy), and which ones they aren’t so into. Catechem Sport Fishing has been on our list for a while, and we’re really excited with the new design.

This legendary café/bar was originally built for the hands on the Slash X Cattle Ranch in the mid 50s, and now it’s a major off-road rider destination. Matt had a great meeting with the owners, learned a lot about the history and took some great shots. Look for this cool t-shirt on the site soon!

Matt just sent in some shots from the road. He’s planning to stop in and talk with some businesses on the Route 66 trail when he’s on the way back, later in the week.

Matt’s heading down to Vegas right now to check out the Magic show, and he’s planning to take a detour on Route 66 between Barstow and Victorville. Hopefully, he can fit in a tour at the museum.

In just two years collecting real t-shirts, we’ve already been confronted with some of the harsh realities facing locally-owned businesses—a few of our member business have been forced to close up shop. Naturally this makes us even more committed to doing whatever we can to promote our members. It also makes us wonder about what kind of cool businesses might still be doing their thing on the legendary Route 66.

We’re all excited to see where Matt’s detour might lead…