About Us
Pura Vida Surf Shop has over 60 years of Pacific NW Surfing experience. Not many surf shops can claim this anywhere. We are also the ONLY full-service surf shop in the Willamette Valley and one of the only surf shops in Oregon that has on-sight ding repair and in-house shaping services available, again very few surf shops can boast this claim!
One of our owners is Al Krieger. He alone has 40+ years of surfing knowledge within Oregon. If you stop by and ask him a question about a specific break within Oregon, he'll not only talk about the first/last time he surfed it but probably have a cool story to go along with it! Al helped start one of the first surf clubs in Oregon, in the early 60s, "the Kahuna Surf Club" of Coos Bay, Or. In 1965, they put on a event they called the Surf Capades, it included skate board demonstrations, a paddle board contest, a 'greased board' contest, and a surfing contest held at Windchester bay, which Al won. One of the judges was the legendary Bruce Brown, who was there to personally narrate his infamous surf movie, The Endless Summer. This was shown at the Marshfield High School gym where tickets were only $1.50! Al is easy to spot in the line-up, he's the one paddling out and paddling into the waves totally old-school...on his knees! If you see him out there, paddle over and say Hi!
The other owner is Robert Rube. Robert has been surfing the NW for going on 20 years, but has been surfing longer than that. He grew up in a Military family that enabled him to live in Hawaii, Florida, New Jersey, Virginia when he was younger. He's also traveled to Costa Rica, Mexico and has surfed both East and West coasts top to bottom. You won't find Robert on shortboards much anymore, with age, he's switched to the traditional longboard, preferably in the 10+ ft range. Robert also is the in-house shaper and shapes all the boards under the logo: Robert's NW Surfboards. He started his logo in 1998, but shaped a few before then. He also is one of the ding repair guys who'll help get your boards back in the water after a ding. Stop in and talk surfboard design with him and you'll see his passion in his work.
All of our employees either surf, skate or both and are well rehearsed in all water sports. Bottom line: We know Surfing and Skating and we take care of our customers. Stop by and have some fun!!
