Long before the local surf forecast could be found online, people would call Wise Surfboards in the Outer Richmond for the day’s waves and weather.
“For what it’s worth, conditions today are …” owner Bob Wise would say on a phone recording about Ocean Beach, the four-mile stretch that’s the epicenter of San Francisco’s surfing community.
Now the three-story shop, a mainstay along the Great Highway for more than half a century, is closing.
Employees confirmed the planned closure, and said they were told the lease would not be renewed at the end of the year. Wise did not return requests for comment.
“It’s unfortunate, the walls are pretty bare right now,” said longtime employee Chad Dawson, who’s worked at the shop for almost two decades. “All I can say is that business is down.”
Glenn Brumage, executive director of Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center in San Clemente, said another surf shop “retiring” wasn’t unusual.
“Surfing for a long time held out in embracing online sales because it was hard to ship a surfboard,” Brumage said. “Before you made a purchase that was $500-$600, you wanted to feel it.” Now, though, specialized surf shops are feeling the general malaise affecting many stores, he said.
John Raymond, an attorney who’s been surfing for 50 years, said Wise’s closing was symbolic to what’s happened to surfing in the city. The store carries a huge array of surfboards, wetsuits and other surfing apparel.
“Surfing in S.F. was a family affair — you knew everybody in the water, and you could tell who it was by the way they were on their boards. That’s not the case anymore,” he said.
Raymond said that plenty of surfers are around today, but the sense of community has faded. “It’s gotten more crowded, and the surfing etiquette and respect just isn’t there,” he said. One thing he’s going to miss at Wise’s is the wall of photos, with images of local and global surfing celebrities past and present.
A surfer would need to have ridden a wave that was twice their height, a rule made by the informal Double Overhead Association, a group of local photographers and surfers, according to Raymond. The pictures would be showcased at Wise’s, he said.
“It was a badge of honor if you saw your photo up there, and we’d tease the ones who didn’t make it,” he said. “What a loss to have that family feel gone.”
Wise, which opened in 1968, was among the earliest surf shops in San Francisco, of the same era as stores like Jack O’Neill’s in San Francisco, Hobie Alter’s shop in Dana Point (Orange County) and Dale Velzy’s in Manhattan Beach (Los Angeles County). Before, surfers would go to “shaping rooms,” or small factory-like shops, to get surfboards that were often handmade and customized, according to Brumage.
Surfing shops and brands grew over the decades, and by the 1990s it wasn’t uncommon to see teenagers and early 20-somethings wearing Billabong and Quiksilver T-shirts.
But stores suffered as people felt more comfortable shopping online, logistics companies became better at shipping bulky goods and interest in surfing-branded clothing declined after the Great Recession, Brumage said.
“There would be no surfing without the surf shop. You found out information where to surf, you met people who surfed,” Brumage said. “There was no other place to get the information needed.”
“It’s a huge loss to our community — they’ve been a staple for such a long time,” said Devin Dargel, owner of the Aqua Surf Shop in the Outer Sunset.
Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika
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