The Vintage T-Shirts Expedition

Chris, our lucky guy on the Hop Scotch scene, just sent in this tipsy report:

“Having never been to an event like this before, I was excited about what lay in store. The Fremont Studios proved to be an awesome venue—a real Hollywood style studio right here in Seattle. The humungous main tasting room was alive with cool music, lighting displays, and BEER! There were probably 500 people (average age about 27), and the crowd was very friendly and accommodating.

My ticket gave me 6 tastings, but lucky for me, my wife isn’t all that into beer so I wound up with twelve (don’t worry, the glasses were small). I have never had more varieties of beer in one evening.

From Maredsous Abbey Dubbel (brewed by real-life monks in Belguim) to Manny’s Pale Ale and everything in between; it was a beer nut’s dream come true.

My favorite beer of the evening was the Veracious Brew made by Shawn over at Lazy Boy Brewing in Everett, which, by the way, had some AMAZING beer. Their pilsner was one of the best I have ever tried. My wife and I chatted with Shawn and his wife for ages and were standing there when Lazy Boy ran out of beer! They had more interest than they anticipated and ran clean out. How’s that for advertising…

The best part of the evening was seeing all the Desteenation tavern and brewery t-shirts hanging up behind the cashier’s booth. Prost!, Tractor, 74th Street Ale House, Hales Ales, Nickerson Street Saloon—we had quite a selection, and they were going fast.

All in all it was a very fun evening with great beer and even better people. I hope to score the office tickets again next year.”

When Matt and Co. filmed the TV commerical in Kona earlier this month, Lyman Medeiros also interviewed Matt about Desteenation and our mission to sell vintage t-shirts from beloved, local establishments. We were pleased that they chose to include the bit about Teshima’s Restaurant and to include footage of Mrs. Teshima. She’ll be celebrating her 100th birthday this year, and we’re all excited to honor her and support such a terrific local restaurant.

You can watch the interview by visiting the Big Island TV website and clicking on the ‘Features’ link and then clicking on Desteenation.

Click here to see all of our Hawaiian t-shirts.

Our fearless leader recently knocked our socks and shoes off when he unveiled his amazing revision to our Desteenation logo. Matt explained that he’s been mulling it over for months now, trying to refine our existing logo to make it better communicate what it is we do exactly.

“I landed on a derivative of the road-sign as a way to express that we are on a perpetual road trip. Our t-shirt-seeking expedition is our story, and now the logo helps express that more quickly—especially to fresh eyes. Anyway, this new logo lends itself to a cool t-shirt too…”

There is a ton of effort involved with a change of this magnitude: think store signage, marketing materials, tags, stickers, the list goes on and on. So, expect to see this bad boy rolling out in a slow, metered fashion over the next few months. The t-shirt will be available sooner than later. Stay tuned.

Last fall, we participated in the Fremont Oktoberfest, and, aside from being a great way to get the word out about Desteenation, we all just had a great time. So, when the folks from the Hop Scotch Tasting Festival called Peter, our Seattle mastermind, to ask if we’d like to sell some t-shirts at this weekend’s event, you can imagine his enthusiastic response. Microbrews and Scotch? It’s going to be long weekend for a some of us…

Peter is putting together a collection of very cool t-shirts to be on sale at event. So if you’re heading down to the Fremont Studios building (just down the street from our store) this Friday and Saturday, stop by and pick up a t-shirt or two (or ten) while you’re getting your buzz on.

Our Seattle Scout, Chris, just signed Bop Street Records, another cool, independent record store specializing in a huge selection of vinyl. Dave, the long-time owner, originally opened his doors in the Greenwood neighborhood back in 1979, and the shop is now right in the thick of it on the historic Ballard Avenue. Look for their cool, vintage t-shirt on our site in the coming weeks!

We’re piling up quite a collection of independent record store t-shirts. Check it out—we’ve got:

• Georgetown Records in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood
• Sonic Boom Records in three cool Seattle neighborhoods: Ballard, Capitol Hill & Fremont
• Logos Books & Records in downtown Santa Cruz, CA
• Easy Street Records in West Seattle and Queen Anne
• Jive Time Records in Fremont and on Captiol Hill
• Bop Street Records in old-town Ballard

So while they were chatting, Dave at Bop Street introduced Chris to his buddy and customer, Tim Hayes, who it turns out is THE Tim Hayes—one-time owner of Capitol Hill’s legendary Fallout Records. They chatted about what we do here with local businesses and t-shirts, and Tim filled Chris in on his waning efforts to sell Fallout t-shirts.

Desteenation has been working on a new t-shirt line that we like to call Vanishing Desteenations—it’s our effort to keep some of our beloved local places alive even after they shut their doors. Fallout Records would be a perfect addition, and you can read why we think so in this article about their sad farewell from The Stranger. We’ll keep you posted.

Only one week after what we’re told was an exciting day at the Kona Store with the Big Island TV crew, including the legendary Lyman Medeiros and our new friend Sam Choy, we have a real, honest-to-goodness TV commercial airing on the Big Island.

We’ll get it streaming here in a few days. In the meantime, you can check it out on the Big Island TV website by clicking on the ‘Shopping’ link and then clicking on Desteenation.

Back in December while on a scouting mission with his family in tow, Matt stopped in at Tex Drive-In for a bite and ended up having an impromptu meeting with the owner. He was totally into our concept but just needed to go over it with his mother and get back to us. Meanwhile, Matt’s daughter was enthralled throughout their entire meeting, standing on a chair by the kitchen window watching the baker make their famous malasadas.

Malasada (n) : a puffy donut without a hole that is deep-fried, rolled in sugar and best eaten while hot. Malasadas are a Portuguese snack introduced by workers imported for cane and pineapple production.

Tex’s was founded by the Texieria’s, a portugese family who opened up shop in the late 60s. It’s been a favorite local haunt ever since, and they make what are arguably the best malasadas on the island as well as some great burgers and true ‘ono grinds’.

Sarah, the owner of Phinney Ridge’s newest (and possibly swankiest) bar and lounge, browsed around our Fremont store last weekend and ended up asking how Oliver’s Twist could become a Desteenation member. We love it when business owners see what we do, understand how they could benefit and ask us if they can sign up–the concept speaks for itself!

Chris, our guy on the Seattle scene, went over to Oliver’s today, met with Sarah and her partner Daniel and made it official. Welcome Oliver’s Twist! These t-shirts will likely be orange and very stylin’.

With a couple hours to kill before hopping on his plane bound for the mainland, Matt stopped in to check out the Hawaiian Lifeguard Surf Instructors head quarters. He was fortunate to meet much of the family behind the operation, and Rick, the owner, pulled in just in time to seal the deal.

What better way to learn to surf than from this group of super-cool, laid-back lifeguards…

These lifeguard t-shirts are going to look great up on the wall in the Kona Store.

In addition to talking story down at the docks and wheeling and dealing with famous locals, Matt has also been working on the signage (among other things) at the Kona store. Our Real Shirts from Real Places sign has been a big hit out front, and we’ll definitely be putting one up at the Fremont store in Seattle as well.