Shop Profile: Ground Zero

Steven Hemphill

• October 06 2009
• 800 views
• 7 comments

Ever since meeting in high school, Seth Sternin and Brendan Mohr always dreamed of going into business together, but their venture found an unlikely catalyst. On one fall evening during a Sacramento State, UC Davis football game, Seth decided to streak across the field and proceeded to get caught. Although Seth was not arrested (keep your clothes on kids… judging by recent events at the University of Colorado he was a lucky one), he did have to pay a fine. In order to foot the bill, Seth created a clothing line Streak Wear, and became aware that there were no good shops to sell his brand in locally. With Brendan’s help, Ground Zero was born. Store manager Shaun Carroll explained that “[Seth] had to drive all the way to Sacramento to get the clothes he wanted and needed so he decided the way to do it was to open his own store.”

Since that fateful run in with the law, Ground Zero has been expanding since 1997 and now has four new stores across Northern California in addition to the original in Davis. Rider owned and operated, the skate and snow shop has an impressive brand stable that includes everything from the biggest name brands to the smaller, harder to find companies. In a recent interview, we sat down with Shaun Carroll and asked him a few questions about the shop and upcoming winter.

What is the main focus of Ground Zero?
Our main focus is to be a core retail store, to have product that the guy going into Zumiez [wants], but also find that core line that Zumiez doesn’t [carry]. We want to cater to all types of customers.

What brands do you carry on the snow side of things?
Burton, Capita, Forum, DC, Omatic, Neff, Santa Cruz, Lib Tech, K2 and more. Were trying to get even more core brands in as well like Dinosaurs Will Die. We want that mom to be able to get that price point board for her son’s birthday but also have something for the hardcore rider who wants to get on something unique like Capita or Dinosaurs will Die.

How is your snow product moving so far?
It’s going Okay so far. It is still really warm outside so we do not have too many people looking for new snow product yet. During the summer we push skate hard and in the winter snow hard, whatever the season is what we push out the door.

How is Ground Zero battling the tough economy?
Everyone has felt the impact of the economy but the only thing to do is be smart with your orders. Were trying to be smart about what we are ordering and making sure we don’t have much overhead and are not sitting on too much product.  It seems to be turning though, which is a good sign for everyone.

What are your predictions for the upcoming winter?
It looks like it’ll be a wetter winter but that’s better than nothing. Hopefully it turns around to be a far better snow season than it has been in the past winters. Right now, we’re moving some snow product, but until it starts to snow and the 80-degree weather goes away we are not quite sure what to expect. If it snows, we have no reason not to predict that we will move snow product.

More information and to check out their online shop, visit groundzeroboardshop.net.