Your classic brick and mortar skateshops play a more than essential role for the local scenes. It allows for different generations of skaters to cross paths and exchange, give some guidance to the youth (sometimes beyond the skateboarding aspects of things) or just share a beer (after working hour of course!). For the untrained eye, a skateshop might just look like this weird boutique where youngsters and old heads skaters chill together on the sidewalk or in a couch, but in reality it is way more than that. A proper skateshop usually becomes this incubator for the local scene where skaters crew togethers towards projects, whether is it board and shirts graphics, local events, premieres, exhibitions and our favorites: local shop videos. First of all these are probably some of the most honest and genuine skate videos, as the it is usually used as a test lab for young skaters and filmers alike. Your favorite skaters and camera holder most probably had their first part or proper clips "for their local".
These days the landscape for skateshop is pretty grim, and lots of them are sadly closing one by one, and the one that are still standing usually are because of the passion and the sacrifices of their owners. Low margins were always part of the game, but online competition, corporate shoe deal and a nose dive in the popularity of skateboarding have put most shops in a very complicated situation. More than ever, shops need your support. You heard it a million time but we can't stress it enough. More than about the products, shops are mandatory to the transmission of our culture and development of brands and iniatives! Track the beginnings of your favorite brands, crew, individuals within skateboarding and you'll systematically find out that a local brick and mortar core skateshop was involved.
For this year skateshop day, we decided to list ten videos from European shops, from 1999 to 2024. Some of them are filled with established pro, some are not. Most of them include riders that had an impact on skateboarding later, before their moment of shine. But also choose them because they represent well what we think make skateshop videos so interesting: they give an accurate representation of the scene of a city at a given time including skaters but also spots and artistic directions!
Have a good watch, and go say hi to your local shop today!
Fifty Fifty Store - "Format" (1999)
The legendary Brixton based shop founded in 1997, owned by Danny Wainwright and Justin Sydenham which sadly recently closed doors in 2025 has made lots of contribution to european skateshop videos. Starting strong with "Brixton Zoo" (1997) they then made sure to release video projects quite regularly, from promos to full length, most of them being available online these days...
The Format video from 1999 just works so well, and the guest list is pretty much as top tier as you can get for that time... Fifty fifty forever, who did a great job a showing what a local shop should do!
Street machine CPH - "Quiet days in CPH" (2007)
Street machine had stores in Paris, San Diego and Copenhagen through the years , but it's CPH location, not far from the famous Jarder Platz released a "Quiet days" (yes, intro is inspired from 70's movie "Quiet days in Clichy") in 2007, foreshadowing how important the Danish scene will be in the upcoming years (and still is now)...
The full video is watchable on Frederick Bengtson channel (who filmed the video!) and we choose to showcase a 19 years old local talent with what to appear to be a bright future ahead of him... Sadly, and that will be the case for other videos share here, youtube encoding of anything below 2k is sub bar...
Nozbone - "Rendez vous" (2009)
Nozbone opened in 2003 and has been supporting parisian skateboarding since then. Their rosters has always been stacked with some of the most tasteful parisian skaters (and still is to this day!) involved with some of the most prolific filmers of their time. Ludo Azemar took care of business for "Rendez vous", a full length released in 2009 featuring a young Kevin Rodriguez , a full part from now legend Lisa Jacob (that flip on Jussieu's 3 blocks!), Jon Monie before Bleach Biarritz, and lots of familiar faces.
A good one that definetly pushed the boudaries of what a shop video could be, and they did it again in 2023 with Terrain Vague for their 20 year anniversary! And you'd be suprised to see how many skaters from Rendez Vous are still around the shop today.
Slam city skate - "City of rats" (2012)
Slam city skate is one of the oldest european skateshop, founded in 1986, and its 2012 video by Henry Edwards-Wood is a good representation of skateboarding at the time in the English capital, with a roster that mixes established riders with up and coming rookies, that would soon make a name for themselves!
You can watch 2/3 of the video here , sadly the third part has disappeared from the world wide web...
Zeropolis - "XV years" (2013)
Zeropolis, founded in 1998, quickly established itself a one of the most influent and core shop of France, despite being located in one of the coldest city: Lille.
Their video "XV" celebrating 15 years of the shop (you'll say "how original" but no need to have the spreadsheet to know not many shops reach that milestone) and like most of the videos of this list, it features a diverse and interesting crew! You can look for a infinite amount of time before finding a video that features Val Bauer along Alex Carolino!
Welcome skate store - "Paul," (2018)
Based in Leeds, Welcome has made numerous contribution to skateshop videos with videos being regularly uploaded on their youtube channel.
"Paul," was their 2018 forty minute long project, and it feels like it gave a quite accurate depiction of what was the scene like in Leeds, and those rough cobblestone spots really do have more souls than the marble plazas some dream about.
Lobby - "Dreams" (2022)
"Dreams" by Nizan Kasper for Hamburg based skateshop was a pleasant surprise, with lots of fresh spots and approach, under the gray skies of northern Germany!
Cybercafe - "CYBERIA 2000" (2023)
Portugal, specially Porto and Lisboa, have been getting lot of attention from the skateboarding world in the recent years, with more and more brands and riders choosing the beautiful country for your usual tour activities. The local scene are very much alive and well, with skateshops such as Kate (Porto) and Cybercafe (Lisboa) making sure the locals get the proper shop supports and projects. Cybercafe has been producing a steady flow of shop videos for the past 3 years, with a serie that started with "Cyberia 2000". As they opened in the summer of 2021, it's great to see newer shops are also pushing for video projects, for the love of the good times and promoting the local crew.
Beyond - "Joni" (2024)
Beyond opened in 2006 (maybe a 20 year anniversary video coming this year?!) in Helsinki, and has this video shows they definetly decided to do things right. Joni, their latest video to date, showcases some of the finest finnish skaters, which at least two of them turned pro quite shortly after this (Eetu for Passport, and Aleksi for Poetic), all filmed by Teemu Metsäkylä, which is also behind the Troposhere videos... So you already know it's good!
Street lab - "LUCCA" (2025)
Street lab has been around since 2001, and has supported more than 50 riders during those 20+ years, some of them which you might have heard of (Heitor, Oski...) and they need your help to stay open in 2026! Lucca is their latest offering, and it's the embodiement of what a good local shop is: no fancy trips or camera needed, mostly unknown skaters (to the international scene) having fun and pushing themselves in their cities.
Enjoy the video, and have a look a the gofundme they set up to try to keep the dream alive!
