Where there’s a will there’s a wave
Sea you at ZuhG Life Surf Shop’s seventh anniversary
Bryan Nichols • Photo by Krista Melone
By Sabine Wilson
For the TODAY
The ZuhG Life Surf Shop will be celebrating its seventh year in business this Saturday, Oct. 8. To commemorate this milestone, the shop will be hosting an event to thank its customers and the community, complete with live music from local classic rock band Sitka and a cornhole tournament. The event also includes a raffle, prizes, giveaways and more.
“When I was a kid I loved going into surf shops,” Owner Bryan Nichols said. “I thought the employees were the coolest. I always wanted to have a surf shop but I was in Sacramento where the closest ocean was a couple of hours away in San Francisco. It wasn’t until I moved to the Oregon Coast that a surf shop became a possibility.”
When Nichols moved to Lincoln City more than nine years ago, he thought of little other than surfing. As he worked on getting good enough to graduate from Otter Rock, a beginners’ spot, he would pass by the building which now houses his surf shop and see the ‘For Lease’ sign out front and it would inspire all the ideas he had for the space.
“After the Oregon Surf Shop closed I eventually called the number on the ‘for lease’ sign and inquired about the unit,” he said. “The owner of the building, Ron Rubin, gave me a chance when I wasn’t the most qualified person to take over the lease.”
But Nichols was not totally foreign to owning a small business and taking the road less traveled. In addition to managing and performing as the lead singer-songwriter of his band “ZuhG,” an obscure word he once stumbled upon that means “to be unlike others,” he had a store called the “ZuhG Life Store” back in his hometown of Sacramento.
“My first store was open for about two years,” he said. “It was a local music store that featured local bands, artists and crafts. We also taught music lessons. We had fun and it was a great learning experience.”
Fast forward to his achievement of seven years being open.
“I opened the shop with little money, a fresh coat of paint and very little product in the beginning,” Nichols said. “But I was motivated and had the drive. We’ve come a long way since then.”
Today, the shop sells and rents everything you need when it comes to surfing and also offers individual and group lessons.
It has also become an established and well-known “go-to” for custom apparel.
“A customer can come into the shop and get a custom t-shirt made with vinyl in minutes,” Nichols said. “We also make custom hoodies, hats and sticker decals. We offer screen printing on a large-scale too. We are proud to make shirts and extensive apparel for many of the local businesses in town.”
As many regular customers know, Nichols’ hobbies do not begin or end with surfing, though is a theme that is woven into the art he creates on canvases large and small.
Some of his more well-known pieces include the vibrant and eye-catching 150-foot mural at The Pines Dine Food Cart Village or the tabletops at Nauti Mermaid Beach House, both in Lincoln CIty. His most recent mural is on the Boho Yoga building in downtown McMinnville.
What all of these pieces have in common are what makes Nichols’ art quintessentially his: references to the ocean. Whether it's waves, octopuses, fish or surfboards, Nichols draws inspiration from his love for the coast in all aspects of his life.
“I blend the surf shop, music and art every day,” he said. “That’s the ZuhG Life!”
Lyrics in his music do the same.
“Lots of my lyrics are about the ocean,” he said. “It’s cool because I released an album in 2010 when I still lived in Sacramento and one of the song lyrics talked about how I dreamt of living at the ocean and being a surfer one day. A lot of my songs back then were songs about wanting to live on the beach. When I sing those songs nowadays I smirk a little, because here I am!
The event will be held from 10 am to 5 pm with music from noon to 2 pm and a cornhole tournament at 1 pm. The ZuhG Life Surf Shop is located at the Nelscott Strip at 3219 SW Hwy. 101. For more information, go to zuhglifesurfshop.com or call 541-418-2196.