I’ve had a business in Bondi Beach for 27 years, and in that time I’ve seen some pretty strange retail concepts come and go.
There’s been Doglato, gelato for dogs. A Zeitgeist milk bar, a milk bar without milk. Kanye West’s Pablo pop-up, which opened and I’m still not entirely sure what was going on there.
Then there was the Louis Vuitton x Supreme pop-up. Remember that one? A pretty unusual place for Louis Vuitton. The queue went around the block, people camped overnight.
Mambo even opened a Tuck Shop, basically a surf-branded school canteen. Then Crumbl came along with a cookie pop-up, selling cookies for something like $17.50 each.
And of course, some lunatic started waking up every morning, taking photos of Bondi, mucking around with his mates as a hobby, then decided to open a shop and sell the photos.
So, yeah. Strange things happen in Bondi, and especially in retail.
This morning I stumbled across another one.
I’m a little late to the party, but there’s a shop called Love Letters on Gould Street. It’s basically just an old-school photo booth. Unmanned. Walk in, pay nine bucks, sit down, get your strip of photos and leave.
That’s it.
Apparently it’s been there for about three months. I reckon I’ve walked past it 1,000 times and never noticed it.
I kinda love it.
As you can probably tell, if I’m talking this much about Bondi retail, the surf ain’t great.
The southerly is up around 20 knots and Bondi is big, crumbly and junky. Well overhead with the occasional set pushing towards double overhead. Almost no one surfing. I saw a couple of brave swimmers out in the middle, but not many.
It’s a cool one too. Around 14 degrees this morning, heading for a maximum of 18. No rain expected, just partly cloudy skies.
Definitely not a beach day. A good day to get some work done.
It’ll be smaller tomorrow and there might be something worth surfing early.
Our White Claw Big Wave Series is also still hanging on the Aquabumps Gallery walls. Come have a look before we take it down.
Take care,
:: Uge
