The Vintage T-Shirts Expedition

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…

A quick jaunt down to Santa Cruz yesterday afternoon led to a beer in Seabright. Our friend Greg at the Dutch Goose in Menlo Park recommended us to the folks at Seabright Brewery, and they were psyched to join our growing collection of cool t-shirts from California.

Check out the Seabright Brewery website.

The hits just keep on coming from Kona this month. Matt has been meeting with business owners daily, telling them about what we do and adding more cool t-shirts to our Hawaiian collection by the minute.

Climbing on board last week:

• Winnie & Brian, the brother and sister team at Kimura’s Fabrics, a legendary family-owned establishment up mauka in Kealakekua that has been passed down through the generations.
• Tom at Greenwell Farms, one of the original coffee farms in Kona and one that is still in the family after 160 years!
• Ed from Jameson’s by the Sea, the venerable Magic Sands Beach restaurant with fantastic people watching and sunset views.
• And, Bobby from the beloved Keei Café. Not only do they have a spectacular view of the Kona coast and serve some of the best food on the island, the entire restaurant is made out of koa: the tables, the chairs, the artwork, you name it. Matt has a ‘thing’ for koa. There was no way he wasn’t going to sign these guys up after walking in that room.

Our printing press is working overtime to get all our existing and new t-shirts over to Hawaii in time for our grand opening in Kona next month, and the designs just keep on coming. The lastest list of sign-ups includes:

• Oshima’s Dry Goods—age-old general store in Kealakekua
• Kona Canoe Club—awesome shirt for this new cafe
• Lulu’s—one of the hottest clubs in the islands
• Paniolo Country Inn—old fashioned, cowboy restaurant
• Big Island Divers—one of the best dive shops on the Kona Coast
• Jackie Rey’s Ohana Grill—an awesome new restaurant in Kailua