Three big shoutouts in the media recently.  The sources are of varying fame, but all are pretty cool:

Our classy polos were featured on the Today Show last week.  Kathy Lee and Hoda were really digging the in-between sizes.  If, like me, you don’t know who Kathy Lee and Hoda are, then ask your grandparents.  Rumor has it they are kind of a big deal….

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Then on Monday Thrillist ran a sweet feature video touring the new store on fast forward.  Great for the A.D.D. viewers because it only takes about 30 seconds.

And lastly, a cool musician from Nashville came into the shop the other day and grabbed a couple shirts.  He was so into the story that he decided to take some pics of the shop and blog about it when he gets back home.  The only problem was we didn’t get his name or his blog.  So I guess just keep your eye out on the world wide web? You’ll probably just randomly see it….ahhh, or not….

Back to the shirt folding fun…

We’ve been busy this summer preparing to open our new store location at 2209 Chestnut Street in San Francisco (mid-August, it’s looking like). After a few hours of critiquing my floor sanding skills, I decided to let Mike have a try…and, of course, I had video running to capture it. Unfortunately, we do not have video of 15 minutes later, when he knocked a good size hole in the wall employing this same floor sanding technique.

Enjoy…

-Adam

We’ve been slow to update the blog lately and that’s mostly because of the heavy drug use at the office.  BUUUT, it’s also because we’ve been busy getting our first retail store ready to go.  That’s right, the world’s smallest flagship store is opening up in San Francisco this August.  All we need to do in the next few weeks is develop around a thousand new products and turn an old hair salon into a shirt shop.

Anyway, the new space is pretty cool, but needs some work.   If you’re in San Francisco and you know how to demo some walls, sand some floors or re-wire some lights then drop us a line.  We can probably arrange some t-shirts-for-work trades….

Here are some pics on Day 1 of construction:

Adam, resident electrician

Talking construction...no big deal

It can get lonely online.  So for the next two weeks we’ll be operating out of a temporary retail space on Chestnut St.  It will still be business as usual over the world wide web, but hopefully if you’re in the neighborhood you can come by and see us in person.  Here are the details:

Location: 2209 Chestnut St. between Pierce & Scott
Dates: Saturday May 1^st – Wednesday May 12^th
Hours: 11am – 7pm

Black Yoga Pants Contest – Win A year’s Free Shirts
To help pass the retail days away we’re going to count the number of black yoga pants that pass us by on Chestnut St. over the next two weeks. Come by and submit a guess. Closest guess wins free t-shirts and dress shirts for a year. Just to give you a hint, we were painting the store today and from 9-7 on a Thursday we counted 117 pairs. That’s almost double the number of pairs my wife has in her closet.  Astounding.

Taylor Stitch Custom Dress Shirts
In an effort to minimize your time spent shopping we’ve partnered with our friends and custom dress shirt makers Taylor Stich.   You can see their gear online at http://www.taylorstitch.com or come by the shop for a fitting.

New & Improved T-shirt Polos Coming Next Week
For sale in store starting Friday and online next Wednesday.  A full line of polos made from our signature t-shirt fabric, complete with re-inforced stitching, some new colors and a special edition graphic. Here’s a sneak peak at the shirts:

Reason number 12 for starting ML was so a guy could buy a blue shirt from a catalog that wasn’t called something outrageous like “Timothy’s Eyes.”  Who is Timothy? And who did he sleep with at Crayola to get his own color?   And for the 99.9% of us who have NOT gazed lovingly into said eyes, how does this help determine color?

Enter our first royal blue shirt, formerly and affectionately known as Labatt Blue.  Anyone who went to college should have this color permanently burned into their subconscious.  Even Timothy probably passed by cases of this stuff every week on his way to the Zima aisle.

Canadian Beer Blue T

Alas, as we’ve continued to grow I’ve received more and more friendly emails from various lawyers explaining how much trouble we could get into for using names like this.  And that is why our current blue t-shirt is now known as Canadian Beer Blue and our Newport Lights T-shirt Polo is Fenway Green.  But the Shamrock Shake Green is staying put.   Until the McD’s puts this delicious beverage back on the regular menu Marine Layer is standing pat.  Well, until that happens or we get served by one of their 250 copyright lawyers.

What’s hotter than flannel shirts, skinny jeans and contrast stitches combined?  Pop-up markets. So hot right now.  Pop-up markets.  Hopefully this trend will last longer then the skinny jeans deal because these events can be a lot of fun.  The ManUp market this weekend should be no exception and Marine Layer will be there in full force along with lots of other great local brands.  Pushy sales people and cheesy mall kiosks not included.  Oh and there will be free beer courtesy of Lagunitas.  Probably should have mentioned that earlier in the post as a bigger selling point…

Perhaps the most exciting news about the show is that the Durable Goods Concern has generously given us enough space to setup a full size game of Cornhole.  Unfortunately the 22ft shuffleboard was a little too hard to move into the space.

Event Details:

1035 Market St. (at 6th St.)

Friday: 3-9pm

Sat & Sun: 11-6pm

Team ML just blacked-in from the holiday rush.  What month is it???  We had to go radio silent for a little while to get caught up on everything, but this week we had some exciting new international sales that seem blog-worthy.  I’m not sure how they found out about our shirts, but in the last few days we’ve had a slew (well, 3) of orders from abroad.  Three original ML logo tees are making their way to Spain, New Zealand and Fiji as we speak.  We’re excited to have some new international supporters and will be on the lookout for some nice pics for the Fan page.

Holiday Shipping Deets

Every order made by 8PM EST will ship that day priority mail, including Saturdays.  That means you should get your package within 2-3 days from the time you place your order.  Add one extra day if Sunday is involved.

-Orders shipped by Dec 21st via standard shipping will arrive by Christmas

-In general SF orders get there the next day

-Bay area and the rest of California 1-2 days

-Midwest & East Coast 2-3 days

In-Store Pickup Thru December 24th

We’ll be here right up until around noon Christmas Eve, including weekends.  If you swing by and ring the buzzer there is a 99% chance someone will be here between 7:30am and 6:30pm during the week.  If you want to nail down a time just call HQ at 415-407-4043.

Gift wrapping in-store is free-o-charge

Weekend Hours – Open Saturday & Sunday

Nothing but love for the last minute shopper….We’ll be here this Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm selling shirts, playing shuffleboard and drinking egg nog.  Come by and we’ll take care of everything.

Not to wreck the surprise, but we may or may not have Love Actually & A Christmas Story playing on the tube

Like the mini disc player I pre-ordered and the laser disc player before that, we were quick to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. A month later we’re saying “uncle”. There’s only room in the virtual Marine Layer world for one social media and we’re staking our horse to Facebook.

We finally figured out how to block the incessant updates from our friends who feel the need to share every mundane detail of their day with the world. Now it’s actually kind of enjoyable to go back and check on Facebook every couple of days.

Every time we hit 10 new fans we’re giving away a free shirt. First person to answer some t-shirt related trivia wins. When we hit 400 fans we’re going to invite everyone who is a fan to a 24 hour private sale where they can get any shirt in the store for half price.

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/marinelayer

If you’ve got some good ideas for trivia questions shoot me an email at mike@marinelayer.com

A long overdue post about a great new organization called the Associates.  It’s a crew of folks in SF working to promote awareness and raise funds for the Saint Francis Memorial Hospital.  Since slingin’ t-shirts in and of itself is not that “charitable” we decided to partner up with the Associates and donate some tees to help with their Escape From Alcatraz triathlon fundraiser.

If, like me, you’re more apt to complete a food triathlon at your local KenTacoHut (KFC-Tbell-Pizza Hut) than a real race, BUT you’d still like to help out the foundation there are a couple other options:

Attend their upcoming Hob Nob on The Hill Holiday Party – Contact Bridgett Hart 415-353-6679

Click here to make a donation through their website, http://www.saintfrancisfoundation.org/index.php?sid=49

Here are some pics from the event.  Glad to see everyone survived….