No, the sign over the new Flip Flop Shops store at Ala Moana Center is not a misprint.
Yes, the locally based franchisee knows that we in Hawaii call such footwear "slippers," or "slippahs."
Bringing flip-flops to Hawaii might seem like taking coals to Newcastle. Nevertheless, the store is part of a 50-unit national chain that has more than 70 additional locations in the pipeline.
Local franchise holder Steve Haugse, who moved here from California to start the business, and his California-based partner Kurt Haller discussed the store-name issue.
"My business partner was nervous," Haugse said. He suggested "we put a sign in the window saying ‘We sell slippahs,’" Haugse laughed.
They imagined customers jokingly chiding them that they had "named the store wrong," he chuckled.
"Everyone at least knows what flip-flops are," which was the bottom line.
Haugse and Haller opened their Flip Flops’ Moana Surfrider store in September 2010. Another location at the Sheraton Waikiki was moved, along with its staff, to the Ala Moana location. The two owners are scouting locations for another Waikiki store.
Flip Flop Shops have capitalized on the pop-culture, laid-back-lifestyle and growing casual-Friday choices. "Free your toes!" exclaims its website.
They are concepts that may leave we Hawaii folk wondering what took those mainland people so long.
And as for the name, Haugse, as a franchisee, could hardly open his new location under a different name.
Besides, the name The Slipper House has long been taken by another Ala Moana merchant.
In Waikiki visitors don’t think twice about what such footwear is called —and they probably realize that if they put the word "thong" in a store name, people might mistake it for a garment worn elsewhere on the body.
Haugse hired more employees when he moved into Ala Moana.
"I’ve got about 10 employees including two full-time managers," he said. The Waikiki store manager is from Oahu, while the Ala Moana store manager is from the Big Island.
The 435-square-foot Ala Moana Flip Flop Shops store is in the former Cathedral Gift Shop space and is smaller than its 650-square-foot sister-store in Waikiki.
Flip Flop Shops nationally carry Hawaii-made brands, including Scott Hawaii and the high-end OluKai, but the Waikiki store is the only one in the chain to carry the handmade Island Slipper line, Haugse said.
At 25, Haugse is young to be a franchisee for an established national retail chain.
He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a business economics degree, but it was really his relationship with his business partner — as a dirt-bike racer for Haller’s pro race team — that set him on the path of slipper, er, flip-flop retailing.
"He was helping me out with my riding career. … He was kind of my mentor. I really learned a ton from him; he started that company from scratch," Haugse said.
Haller set out to open a store in Santa Barbara and had Haugse help him out with the opening. "It went well, and I was getting ready to graduate. … I was able to get a business loan, we formed a partnership and the rest is history," he said.
Many of his employees are college students for whom he worked to set a good example, reporting to the shop early each day and staying until closing for the first year and a half.
"It stokes me out that all my staff is young," he said. He hopes his example will make this more than just a college job for them and that they also will gain early success after graduation.
It was "exciting to roll the dice and scary to come out here," where he didn’t know anyone, Haugse said.
Now he paddles for the Outrigger Canoe Club, and his coach is Steven Scott, CEO of slipper maker Scott Shoe Co. Ltd., which does business as Scott Hawaii.
Go figure.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
