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Extreme Dreams: Sid Abbruzzi on Building a Surfing and Skating Community

• Ed Drozda

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Excited to share my conversation with the legendary Sid Abbruzzi, The Godfather of New England Surfing and Skating, on The Water Trough! From hosting the X Games to building a cultural institution, Sid’s story is a testament to passion and perseverance. Don’t miss it! 🏄‍♂️🎉 #Podcast #CommunityLove #Entrepreneur

Ed Drozda:

Welcome to The Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Welcome back to The Water Trough, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor. I'm very excited to be joined by Sid Abruzzi, often referred to as the Godfather of New England surfing and skating. As a surfer myself, I have to say it truly is an honor for me to have Sid here today. Sid is the founder of Water Brothers Newport, an iconic surf and skate brand and shop. The original location was a shack actually on First Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. Yes, it was. It was. Opened in 1971, it became a central hub for the New England Surf and Skate Community. As skateboarding grew in popularity, Sid built a ramp nearby attracting legendary skaters like Tony Hawk, and graphic designer Shepard Fairey, who created early logos for Water Brothers. The shop became a cultural institution and a home, literally, for many young surf and skate enthusiasts. In 1993 Sid moved up Memorial Boulevard, opened a storefront there next to our good old bar, if we recall, now the name is escaping me. Jimmy's Jimmy. Jimmy's Jimmy Saloon next door to Jimmy's Saloon. Okay. And in 1995, Water Brothers gained international recognition when the first X Games came to Newport. Sid's shop served as the central hub for athletes and events. 2022, the landlord at the shop on Memorial decided to go forward with plans to build housing. Unfortunately the shop was demolished. However, the local community who was well aware of Sid, who loved him dearly, stepped up and said, we're not gonna let this thing go away. And thus gave rise to local pop-up shops, which to this day exist. Am I correct?

Sid Abbruzzi:

Right. There's another part of the story that is amazing. Should I jump in with it?

Ed Drozda:

Why don't you do that? And by the way Sid, welcome. Welcome, Sid.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Oh, thank you. It's an honor to be on the show, Ed. Let's pick up right at the end. It's funny, the guy who bought the building and knocked us out, I introduced him to my landlord thinking we'd have a retail floor on the bottom with a, call it hotel on the top. Well, that dream didn't happen. The guy, actually a good friend of mine wanted to buy the brand and everything, and it just wasn't a price. So me and my wife walked away from it. A year later my landlord calls me up and says, hey, so and so is back and he's gonna buy the business, I would start looking for something. I didn't call the guy up to ask him'cause my landlord said, I'll just keep you informed. So in February I was told I have 45 days to vacate the property because the property was for sale. Long story short, when the movie ended we had no idea what we were doing. We went back into the popup shop thing and a great friend of mine by the name of Jerry Kirby, who's a world famous sailor and has an unreal construction company in Newport, Kirby Construction. Well, little behold Jerry bought the property right next to us. We had about three weeks to go before Christmas when Jerry informed me that hey, we're gonna put something here so he can get some holiday sales. He said let's try a tent. Well, the tent just had too much complications, so we scratched that. And then he wanted to do containers and make like a Puma city like he was involved in, in Spain when he was sailing, where they made these cool shops outta containers and his company can do and build anything. Mm-hmm. So, we couldn't get the containers here in time. Now we're down to about eight or 10 days before Christmas. Jerry called in the troops. They built this incredible store I'm at in six days, top to bottom. We have the most beautiful shop in the world and this will be our third Christmas coming up. So that's where we're at right now. And it's literally 41 Memorial Boulevard when our last location was 39. So we're right there.

Ed Drozda:

How did you feel when this whole thing went down, when you realized that the shop was going away?

Sid Abbruzzi:

And you know what Ed, it was devastating, but it wasn't like it happened overnight. Mm-hmm. There was a couple years earlier we thought the guy was for sure buying the building and we were gone, then his deal fell through. Then when we got word that we were 99.9% leaving, we were prepared. And then the scene when they're knocking down the building in the movie and everything, that's for real. You know what I mean? That was really when it hit. I brought my old partner Rick. He stood next to me and my wife, who's my partner in Water Brothers now, a couple of the friends of ours were there. Yeah, it hit home. Then we had the movie to fall back on as that was being put together and edited and everything like that. Jerry's the executive producer of our film by the way. Jerry came in and just said hey, here's what I got in mind.

Ed Drozda:

And here you are today. I don't really suppose you were surprised.

Sid Abbruzzi:

I was surprised because buying property in Newport isn't easy. Building something in Newport isn't easy, you know what I mean? And we were able to get that shop up and running before Christmas was simply amazing. We opened up a day before Christmas Eve. Okay. Of all times. And we sold everything in the store. It was a line down the street and when people came in Christmas Eve figuring, wow they just opened, we gotta have a lot of stuff in here, it was empty. We had to greet people at the door saying hey guys, what's the old surfing line,"should have been here yesterday". But we said sorry, we sold out and we had a lot of gear by the way. I'm not gonna give the number over the air, but it was by far the biggest retail day I've ever had in my life.

Ed Drozda:

The fascinating thing to me, and I think the really important lesson for people to hear is the sort of community that you created over this time. Wouldn't you say that community coming out as it did is what made this all possible?

Sid Abbruzzi:

Absolutely, 1000%. It wasn't like we're advertising this big drop sale weeks in advance. People literally probably knew 48 hours in advance that Water Brothers was gonna open. Say Christmas was Saturday, that Water Brothers was gonna open on Thursday. And the response was absolutely incredible.

Ed Drozda:

Sid let's face it, this is something you cultivated in those 50 years. Yeah. It didn't happen that night, that day. No. No. So what is it that you did and I know you're a humble guy. I'm not trying to put you in an awkward position. I'm acknowledging what you did, so please don't take it like you can't be honest about this. How did you build this thing?

Sid Abbruzzi:

Well you know, I think not the word humble, but I think it was just who I am, being yourself. The way you treat people no matter where they're from. Always excited yourself about this. My dad was alive, we'll go back to 1971 mm-hmm. There's this abandoned shack in the middle of the parking lot. And I called Mr. Lahood. I had been familiar with his son through sports and stuff, and old Eli Lahood, I went to Mr. Lahood, hey can we rent this shack? And he was a sort of a tough, ornery guy. Yeah okay, and the first year was$300 a year. Okay. We had no electricity. Yep. So across the way was a bar, I believe at the time it was Point and A Half. Half the parking lot was broken up asphalt, and then right where the shop sort of ended in the middle of the parking lot was combination, dirt, sand. We dug a trench, maybe only two feet, and we ran extension cords, the restaurant right to our shop. So we had one outlet for a light or something. We had a cigar box for a cash box, and everybody just started hanging around. We had our Overland surfboards there. Funny, every time a car went to the beach they go over that little bump and disconnect the extension cord. I mean, it was classic stuff. Then we brought in a pot belly stove, a real old school potbelly stove. Friends of mine were carpenters, did their thing. We painted all over the sheet rock. We had a poster of Alice Cooper; it was a crazy scene. I forgot what year it was, our rent went up to a couple hundred dollars a month and we asked Mr. Lahood and we were able to expand a 10 by 20 onto the original shed. We started as skateboarding grew. We didn't walk into like somebody trying to start a store now where there's established corporations or established companies, established sports. No one believed in these sports. The sixties had come and gone with surfing. When the Shortboard Revolution hit, Vietnam, all these shops closed. So when we opened up in 71, we closed say November, maybe December. We hadn't even established Christmas sales yet, and we'd go surf anywhere and come back around March or April. Knowing we still had the shack there and all of that stuff. But as soon as skateboarding got a little more popular, we put up little quarter pipes and stuff like that. All the trucks were still narrow. When urethane hit, it changed the whole business structure. Everybody wanted to skateboard when urethane hit, and the trucks are still small, Sure-Grip and Chicago trucks. We just rode with the wave. It was a wave. The short boards were a wave. The wetsuits were a wave. They're getting better and better. I mean, we started surfing in dive suits. I don't have to tell you that. We used to wear diving boots, Bailey boots. Then O'Neill came out. We sold O'Neill. Then Bailey tried to get into the surfing business and then all these little other brands, but we were like O'Neill guys. And then right up the street, I'll never forget this, we had our little quarter pipe. We hadn't even set up the half pipe yet. Hmm. We had what they called a U. It was a blue fiberglass ramp that Stevie Dara made. We're blessed that one of my best friends to this day was Stevie Dara, who started Flight snowboards and Flight skateboards. He was in town, just the mad inventor making stuff in his basement, and then eventually renting these garages where he had these little factories making fiberglass molded skateboards. Then it went into oak, and then it went into ply. He did the same thing with snowboards. Stevie made this fiberglass ramp. Eight across about nine foot high, made out of fiberglass matting, and we put that at the shop. We were riding that with little corner pipes when there was no surf, again there was no flat bottom, and there was no decks on these things yet. These guys walk into the shop and he goes hey, my name's Tony. I'm from Cranston, Rhode Island, and I own Quality Products, and we're making Road Rider Wheels. It was precision barren urethane wheels. Nobody had that right? And the trucks weren't the same diameter on the axle so he had already made these little cut up straws that fit over the smaller trucks. Then four months later, here comes Tracker trucks with that axle size, Independent truck with that axle size, Bennett truck with that axle size. Everybody knew. So the industry knew there was gonna be something, a revolution. We had the first precision wheels and here comes another explosion, and this is still seventies. Fast forward the eighties. Now it's a full business with Tony Hawk, Powell Peralta, Santa Cruz Skateboards and all these guys. And you know, we're ahead of the game. We built this incredible half pipe. We had Tony Hawk and the Bones Brigade there in 1989. There was 2000 kids in the parking lot. Just crazy stuff like that kept laying on us, ahead of the curve, but not reading the curve just along for the ride, you know? I'm sure we read the curve, but there was stuff going on that we were just in the right place at the right time to. A couple years later we decided to make the ramp 10 foot because vertical skating was in. For Mr. Lahood we took down one wall of the ramp at the time. We took down the six foot side and built a 10 foot section. We took down the other six foot side and built a 10 foot section. And Mr. Lahood comes up to me and says hey, I might be old but I know the difference between a six foot ramp and a 10 foot ramp. And I said, Mr. Lahood, it's safer on the bigger ramp. He couldn't figure that out, but I said it gives you more time to slide and some. Then in the movie it talks about how we found out about insurance. We found out a couple places in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, they set up explorer posts where they got some form of liability insurance by making their posts escape posts or by offering skateboarding. So everybody that came to the ramp, just for a little while because we got tired of it, signed up as a Boy Scout, and that's a funny part of the movie. Tony Hawk describes how I did that because Tony knew all about that law too. We actually had a piece of paper that we showed Mr. Lahood, that this ramp was insured with liability. I'm not saying if someone got seriously hurt what would've went down? Yeah. But nobody got seriously hurt, thank God. And right to the end was technically an Explorer Post, but anybody who showed up to skate, we let'em skate. Now, as a business owner that was amazing. For almost 20 years at that location Mr. Lahood was always ready to listen to the best offer, and he never gave us a lease more than maybe six months. You guys can be here till the end of the summer then we'll see what's happening. That's how it was. I remember one year, maybe close to the nineties, they brought in these containers that were gonna start construction of a hotel marina in the area. We thought we were long gone, but that got shot down by the Coastal Commission. So that gave us another couple years of breath. I had a great partner at the time by the name of Rick Weibust, who did most of the books and stuff, and I was, as my brother says, the showman and did all the surfing and skating and brought all the changes. I would go to Santa Cruz, California and surf. I'd start off by going to a trade show in San Diego and then make my way up to Santa Cruz to see all the guys I sold surfboards with and to surf for a month or so. Well, I was between San Diego and Santa Cruz at a place called Love Burger in San Clemente and I got a phone call saying hey Sid, I think Mr. Lahood just sold the property. Mm-hmm. There was two Greek guys, gentleman by the name of Pete and Harry that had bought the property right on the other side of the wall from us called Johnny's House of Seafood. Yep. And they were just dying to get in there. In September they got in, so I flew home and I'd been home for a week and we're just waiting for'em to come around the corner and here comes Pete, their lawyer in the middle, and Harry. And we had been friendly with'em, you know, they were playing up to us. We'd go over to their bar after skating and stuff and have a beer or two. Well, they came over like they never met us before in their life. Oh boy. And they said listen guys, if you don't get people off that ramp and make it unrideable right now you guys are outta here. But if you break it down, you guys can stay till Christmas. At the time it was 92, 93, so we were established. It wasn't like 78, 79 right? We were counting on Christmas sales, so we broke it down, took stuff off the flat bottom, threw furniture on it, put chains across it, and we got to stay til Christmas that year. Then my partner Rick had gone up the street and we found that building that was available. I told Rick, it's too far away from the beach when actually it's like 300 yards from the beach. When you're 20 years standing on the sand with your business, it was tough to leave. That really hurt. And to this day, that building is still there in the middle of the parking lot. I got a call from the town of Middletown from someone involved in the building thing that, it's changed hands. That was an historical site. So now we're established up on Memorial Boulevard. The shack is just a memory and here comes the Extreme Games. What is going on? Somebody said hey listen, they're bringing the top pros in the world here. They're gonna have skateboarding, skydiving at the time, rollerblading, and all this, and we were just skateboard guys, we could care about everything else. But they're gonna bring Danny Way, Tony Hawk, all the big boys are showing up and it's gonna be in Fort Adams. We started getting calls from the team managers that, hey can we have our athletes boxes sent to your shop where they can pick'em up? Every pro in the world came into our shop. We had the Santa Cruz guys, the Paul Peralta guys, whatever company it was. That was absolutely incredible for us.

Ed Drozda:

That is awesome.

Sid Abbruzzi:

The first Extreme Games party was in my backyard, 300 people. Helicopters overhead. And my mother's still living on the upstairs. Tony Hawk, everybody. It was incredible. The second year we had the apartment above the shop and you talk about wild parties. That's how I'll leave that. The Extreme Games in Newport was a different time. You know what I mean? The second year, I can't understand why they did this, but the second year, they didn't have it at Fort Adams. They had it in downtown Newport, right around Bowen's Wharf, and I said you know what guys? This is the last year. Let's enjoy it. This is the last year this event will ever be in Newport, Rhode Island. It is headed for auditoriums, for big cities, and it certainly was. So I got a funny side story. We were so hardcore, sometimes not even to our own benefit. I took the ESPN logo, ESPN2 was covering everything; it said Extreme Games, ESPN2, all of this stuff, and I made a t-shirt, replica t-shirt that said Extreme Bullshit, H2O Brothers, like the ESPN2 logo Brothers, right? Well, guys who got the shirt weren't allowed to go into Fort Adams. A couple guys were wearing the shirt at the Clarke Cooke House got in a big argument with ESPN executives in there. Who are these guys calling us? And to this day, I still have one of'em, but I'll tell you the catcher of it. So that was what? July, August. In December, two guys walk into my shop and they say is Sid here. Yeah, what's up? Do you have any more of those extreme bullshit t-shirts left? And I said, well, listen, I might have one or two, what's up? And they said, we'll be straight with you. We're from ESPN and at the ESPN dinner banquet we wanna present that t-shirt to our boss who came up with the concept of the Extreme Games. So I said, no problem. And so it went from being cast outs to given an award to the CEO. So that's just a little funny side story, but the Extreme Games paid off forever. So we're fortunate with that. Why don't you take over with a question?

Ed Drozda:

First of all, I gotta tell you something. It's really interesting'cause what I'm hearing you say is that your evolution is as much about serendipity as it is about anything. Things just evolved for you. Yeah. I'm not saying you didn't have to do something to make them happen, but to some degree you managed to jockey around what was there and be waiting when the fallout came and be able to deal with it.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We shaped it in our area.

Ed Drozda:

Early yeah, in your basement and then at the shack. But as time went on, let's face it the loyalty in the surf and skate community, which is comprised at the time of a lot of very, very young people, is somewhat volatile. They're coming, they're going, they're here, they're there. They're not always gonna be in one place for you, but yet somehow you managed to take that essence, I don't know. I don't even know how to say what I'm trying to say, but this is what I'm sensing.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Yeah, yeah, it's sort of like you're dealt a hand of cards, you gotta know how to play the cards. And it wasn't like we're playing the cards to our advantage. We weren't manipulating anything at all. When you actually skate all the time and you surf all the time, and you see this stuff, and you're one of the quote athletes yourself, instead of just being the business guy who's ya know I'm changing my bike shop into a skateboard shop. I'm changing my hockey store. I'm gonna have a rack of skateboards in there. When you're actually do it, perform it and did it before it was an industry, or do it as the industry evolves it's just natural to be in that position. So many people I know had stores that became a skate shop or a surfboard shop because it was popular. You know what I mean, it was popular. And if it was unpopular, we'd still be doing the same thing. That's maybe not an answer, but that's something that we did. If no one skated we would. If no one sold skateboards we would. We just did what we loved. And we were fortunate where bigger things were in front of us. Where the X-Games was in front of us, where the Bones Brigade, we called them up, we paid$2,000, which was insane money at the time. And we charged everybody two bucks and they didn't have to pay'cause he just could have walked on free. We did all of that and we loved it and we never asked, well if we get this sponsor, we're going to do it. No, we did it. We did it without sponsorship. We did it because we love it. We didn't ask permission to build a ramp. We just built a ramp. Hey, it could've got torn down the next day. The town could have came to us and said, you guys are crazy. Beat it. Take this down now. My landlord could have said that. So I don't know how to answer that.

Ed Drozda:

You absolutely answered it. You told me and you told those who will listen to this exactly what I would hope they would hear. I have clients that talk about scaling. More and more. What you scaled is your passion and the community around you. You didn't have to be bigger. You're better by virtue of being what you are, who you are. It seems to me you always remain true to what matters to you. What I meant when I said you waited for things to fall into place, I'm not saying you haven't shaped things. Shape, get it, ha. Anyway, you waited for things to fall into place knowing that you're grounded in what you are doing. You're waiting to see where you fit in and you're doing what you can do in response. I think that's a really important thing for young business people to hear. It's not about bigger, it's not about better. It's about remaining true and grounded in what really matters. That's what I'm hearing you tell me.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Yeah, exactly Ed. Does that apply to every business? I'm not sure. It applies to businesses that you can get involved in. Like somebody opening up a convenience store. They're not into a jar of mayonnaise every day, you know what I'm saying? They're not buying the product,'cause they love it, they gotta have it. That probably started out with these specialty shops they have now. We're fortunate that our passion is our sports.

Ed Drozda:

Your passion is your sport and again, I'll go one step further and say your passion is your community. And, you've served them well and that brings us full circle. You've mentioned it periodically, the documentary came out in 2025, right?

Sid Abbruzzi:

Yeah. We've only been on streaming for two months. It came out last year. We did up and down the East coast. We won the Florida Film Festival, Surf Festival. We did South Carolina, couple times in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, couple times in Massachusetts, a bunch in Rhode Island. Seven nights in New York City, and then for the West Coast we were invited to the Coronado Film Festival, gorgeous. The guy ended up loving us and the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas sort of a rundown, really cool single owner who's living in there now. It's where Taylor Steele and all these movie surf movie guys play. He told us the Ramones played there in the nineties. It's just this old school theater that's so cool. We ended up playing there three times. Then we did the Laguna Film Festival, which is another beautiful event. And then two events in Santa Monica and North Hollywood. We really wanted to go up to Santa Cruz and San Francisco'cause we shot the movie a month in Santa Cruz. And we had yet to been able to get there; it was a money thing and the holidays were coming, we had to get back to the store. We've been streaming for two months. We're finding out the situation where I can make an appearance at the theater, the store, or the lodge, whatever it is. The music rights for these things is outta control. We had to get a one year theater music right. I said, January this year, let's play it again in Newport. We gotta winter break. Can't do it, theater music time's over. I'm like, what? Because I didn't check. I figured these guys are doing it right. Then they're hey, we're working on the streaming thing now and we should be streaming, by the end of the summer. So we get the streaming thing down and now I'm like, okay, so anybody can buy the movie and own it for$14. Somebody buys it and plays it, and can I go make an appearance there? Yes and no, if you're selling tickets. So we're getting everything clarified'cause we wanna go down to Surf Expo in Florida. That's the only trade show left in this industry. They used to have Action Sports Retailer in San Diego in September and in January was in Long Beach and they were packed. Every individual company had a booth. That's when the money was going crazy and those shows just stopped. The only show now is in January in Orlando. The skateboarding companies and the shoe companies don't go to it anymore. The industry flipped about six months ago with Billabong, Volcom, and Quicksilver being not who they are anymore. I think they're all owned by one company. It's a mess. That's why individual people like us, you'll see more and more smaller names, newer names starting to develop.

Ed Drozda:

It's a lot more of the single us's out there than there are of those bigger ones. But the distinction is that the smaller us again, has to have that passion and drive to be that smaller us in view of those bigger ones. And that is profoundly important. You mentioned the thing about a little convenience store, the passion of the mayonnaise and stuff like that. What does matter is you have a passion in that case of the community. I want to serve'em and what they need. That's true. What, what they need. That's true. What they need. I will have, I will give them what they need, but I care about them. And that is the distinction, Sid, that you bring to the table. That is again the thing that inspired me to have this conversation with you. There's just so much information here and and we could continue this conversation for sure. I wouldn't mind doing that at a different time.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Part two Ed, coming up whenever you're ready.

Ed Drozda:

With that in mind, I would like to wrap up and I'd like to ask you what would you like to share with people who perhaps are curious about being like you in the business world, afraid to do so, or don't have a clue where to start? What would you like to share with them?

Sid Abbruzzi:

Well, I'd like to share it's totally possible, it's not too late, if you have a passion for a business, if you have a passion for anything that you wanna share with the public. I have two friends that started stores because they loved Water Brothers and they started'em in the nineties and they are so successful. They used to come as kids and I'd give'em six pair of sneakers and they'd go sell'em to their friends. And now they have Civil. Civil has a big shop in Providence, has a big shop in East Greenwich and a big shop in Misquamicut. My friends from Solstice in New Bedford, same thing. They were all inspired by a small shack like I had, and it just gave them the passion to sell to their friends. And then their friends became their neighborhood, and then their neighborhood became customers showing up from everywhere to buy. And I'd like to share that, it's cliche but never give up. If you believe in something you wanna go forward with it. You get all these people, well, I gotta do the research to see if I can do it or not. Well, that'll take out half your passion, you know. I'm not saying jump into the fire and see how it goes, but we did. That's for sure. We did.

Ed Drozda:

And you continued, you continue to ride the wave of that passion. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, this is no time to pull out, is it?

Sid Abbruzzi:

No, sir. I'll be 75 in August and I enjoy every single day at Water Brothers.

Ed Drozda:

I am really thrilled Sid, to have you here with me today. I can't tell you how grateful I am for this conversation. I want to thank you very much for everything. Thank you.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Oh no, Ed you're the best. Thank you. Great talking with you and thank you so much.

Ed Drozda:

Well, thank you.

Sid Abbruzzi:

Alright brother.

Ed Drozda:

Folks, this is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor. I may not be paddling out with Sid these days, but I will say this much. I know in my heart that he's right there with me and he's with each of you as well. From The Water Trough, I want to wish you, as always, a healthy business. And a reminder from Sid as well as from myself, anything is possible, drop in and charge it. Keep going.