Curl Surf Shop is closing its high profile store at Disney Springs in Orlando today.
I spoke this morning with Sammy Duvall, who owns Curl with his wife, Susan, about the store closing.
Curl opened in 2007, and was a huge success and did big volume. In 2013, they moved to a new location that was about double the size, which also did well.
Curl carries a mix of men’s and women’s surf brands, surf adjacent brands, and women’s fashion, and is known for being very well merchandised.
Sammy was limited as to what he could say, but indicated it was not their choice to close. They had been planning updates to the store before this happened.
However, Sammy and Susan are big believers in finding the positive in every situation, he said, and think that when one door closes another opens and often the new opportunity turns out to be better.
The Duvalls have already been looking for locations for a new Curl store and are also kicking around other new concepts.
Curl already has a second store in Anaheim in Downtown Disney. That store opened in 2017 and also does big volume.
High-volume retail is its own art form, and has become Sammy and Susan’s specialty.
They are also good at adjusting to change, judging by what I have observed over time during my frequent visits to Disney Springs.
The Duvalls have had major challenges thrown their way, including years of negative impacts from disruptive construction at Disney Springs, in addition to Disney expanding the center and basically adding a whole shopping mall to the development.
From what I saw, the expansion not only moved shopping traffic to another area of the center, it has also added a plethora of new apparel competition.
When I brought up those issues with Sammy, he again took a positive stance.
“Look, there’s definitely been major construction challenges for many, many years, and all of those things were out of our control,” he said. “We’ve always taken the approach, ‘How do we adapt to the situation?’ and that’s what we did. Sometimes you just end up being more creative and finding better solutions to make it work.”
While the Disney Springs store is shutting its doors, the Duvalls have more retail plans in the works.
“It’s not goodbye, it’s just a matter of finding the right spot, whether in Florida or on the West Coast,” he said. “From 2007 to now, we’ve built up quite a following. We have a very happy customer base with not only the surf side of our store but on the fashion side as well.
“It’s unfortunate, but now we’re focusing ahead,” Sammy said. “Forward is where we are spending our time and effort.”
Editor’s note: Industry customer Ron Jon is opening a store at Disney Springs in the fall at a different location in the center. Read that story here.
