YARGH! Poor sales sink Fremont’s pirate store
By Matt Artz
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 5:38 pm in Fremont, business.
Fremont’s SeaWolf Trading Company had some pretty neat merchandise and a great web site name: www.pirateswag.com. That was enough to merit not one, but two big stories in The Argus. But even the free publicity wasn’t enough to keep one of Fremont’s quirkiest stores afloat.
We’ll have a story tomorrow that the pirate store is closing at the end of August after nearly three years at 36511 Fremont Blvd. Let’s hope the replacement shop isn’t Applebees #3.
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UPDATE: Unbeknownst to Matt, what the pirate store’s owner, Don Hatcher, also told me is that his stepdaughter, an Ohlone College student who helped out at the shop’s counter, recently decided “to make some money” this summer by taking a job at … the Pacific Commons Applebees. Talk about irony, argh!
– Todd
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July 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
As cool as it is, really, how long can a pirate store be in business before saturation meets Bay Area retail property value? It’d be great if they could keep the online version going with lower overhead (and on a new server with more hamsters). Yarr!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Though it’s too bad it’s going out of business, I couldn’t believe that it went into business in the first place. How much swag can Fremont buy?!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
ARRGG! It is/was a great store! I wish Fremont would support more places like it!! I think a place like that could have done better in a location with more foot traffic. And is there a place with enough foot traffic in Fremont? Maybe Niles, but the antique shops have almost choked any other kind of retail there (I miss the Toy Box!)– methinks Fremont could really use a true downtown area!
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
If yah bloody landlubbers find yourself in Frisco, you might stop by http://www.826valencia.org/store/index.html
and check out the swag!
But yah bettah support the Sea Wolf through this month or yah be walkin’ the plank!!!!
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
My daughter is going to be so sad she and the rest of the family love that store.