If it seems like the thunderous roar of roller skaters effortlessly gliding on the asphalt is more frequent—it’s because it is.
The recreational activity regained popularity at the beginning of the pandemic and continues its run today.
No one knows this more than Pigeon’s Roller Skate Shop owner Shayna “Pigeon” Meikle.
As the pandemic took hold in 2020, Meikle was ready to close the shop and put her employees on unemployment, but a sudden surge in sales ripped through that plan.
“It was a surreal moment when sales started to explode,” Meikle said. “I hit everyone back up and I was like ‘crumble that paperwork.’”
Meikle split up the team into different locations to keep up with demand while observing COVID-19 protocols.
A quick look at Google trends indicates that the term “roller-skates” had a spike in searches during May 2020—its popularity hasn’t waned much.
“We still have a line, you still have to wait to get served at our [4th street] shop,” Meikle said. “There are still items that sell out really fast and [are] really hard to come by.”
The shop deals with bots, according to Meikle, that try to buy coveted items to resell at three times the price on eBay.
A pair of Moxie Lolly Skates in Pineapple run for $369 at the shop, while they go for up to $649.99 on eBay.
Pigeon’s is a one-stop-shop for skating essentials. The store offers an array of roller skates—from Moxie to Riedell—in almost all the colors of the rainbow. The shop also carries a variety of wheels, its own apparel, hardware, safety gear and other accessories.
Without knowing, Pigeon’s had long been preparing for the resurgence in roller skating. Its warehouse in Signal Hill was fully stocked, the online store was well oiled and its social media presence was growing.
Locally, roller skating had already shown signs of its popularity. The “rollouts” that Meikle hosted from the shop on Fridays got so big they had to be moved to the beach.
Since the resurgence, Meikle says small skate groups and friend groups meet up at the beach to host their own rollouts.
“People are hosting rollouts, almost every single day,” the shop owner said. “Think of roller skating as a hobby. There are so many potential friends and there’s always something happening.”
Meikle skates often at the Signal Hill Park basketball court. When the hoops were taken down during pandemic closures, she used it as her personal roller rink.
Recently, a Pigeon’s employee hosted a meet-up at the park with 55 other roller skaters—who for hours drifted through the court like dancers in a ballroom.
Meikle’s dream of getting more people in skates was becoming reality via free skating lessons that the shop offered every summer in Long Beach.
A lack of permits led to a pile of citations that eventually put a stop to the lessons. The dream however isn’t dead.
“People in the community who we taught how to roller skate through those free lessons, are now hosting the free lessons,” Meikle said.
With her passion for roller skating guiding her, Meikle continues to expand her roller-skating empire through this resurgence.
Soon she’ll launch a podcast from the shop’s headquarters where she interviews some of the top roller skaters.
In just a few weeks, the shop will also host the Pigeon’s Skate Shop Party at Disco Oasis, an interactive roller disco experience at the South Coast Botanical Garden.
For Meikle, the resurgence in roller skating feels like “victory.”
“People are on wheels and that’s a big mission of mine having that sort of fulfilled,” she said. “[It] feels like victory itself putting my brain on to the next big thing.”
Pigeon’s Roller Skate Shop is located at 2148 E 4th St. in Long Beach. The shop’s summer storefront hours are: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.