Topsail Insider
Topsail Insider interviews local businesses and nonprofits in the Greater Topsail area of North Carolina including Hampstead, Surf City, Topsail Beach, North Topsail, Holly Ridge, and Sneads Ferry. Locals can learn about all the new businesses in our area, prospective residents can find what’s available before making the big move, and vacationers will see we have much to offer beyond our beautiful beaches!
Topsail Insider
Surf City Jet Ski & Watersports
It’s time to get off that beach blanket and speed down the Intracoastal Waterway with Surf City Jet Ski & Watersports! Trudy Solomon hosts this exciting episode, interviewing owners Houston and Katie Lowder. Their business offers summertime fun with jet ski rentals for freestyle riding within a nine-mile stretch, the largest freestyle area in North Carolina! Or enjoy a guided jet ski adventure tour south to see the best parts of the Cape Fear Region from the water. If you want to slow things down, you can enjoy paddleboarding, kayaking, and the new this year, paddle board yoga!
In addition to their watersports business, Katie and Houston have recently expanded their ventures by acquiring a furniture store in Sneads Ferry, now Lowder's Furniture.
Learn more and book your adventure at SurfCityJetSkiRentals.com!
Location: 512 Roland Ave, Surf City, NC 28445 on Topsail Island
Phone: 910-899-8606
Email: surfcityjetskirentals@gmail.com
Find and Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Trip Advisor!
Also visit Katie & Houston’s new furniture store, Lowder’s Furniture!
Topsail Insider is Sponsored by Saltwater Suites & Resort - Topsail Island’s premier luxury hospitality experience! Book your beach getaway today at SaltwaterTopsail.com or call (910) 886-4818!
Topsail Insider is also Sponsored by Surf City Line! Come out for Beachin’ Bowls, Margaritas, and Live Music, and enjoy your meal on their top deck with Ocean Views!
Visit SurfCityLineNC.com for their full food, bar, and brunch menus!
Topsail Insider is edited by Jim Mendes-Pouget.
jimpouget@gmail.com | http://bit.ly/PodcastsByJim.
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If you are a Greater Topsail business owner or nonprofit, Register to be a Guest on our website at www.topsailinsider.com!
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Thanks - I’ll see you around Topsail!
Welcome to Topsail Insider where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina. Coming up, we have Trudy Solomon hosting today and she's interviewing Katie and Houston Louder owners of Surf City Jet Ski and new this year Louder's Furniture. We're talking about jet ski rentals, jet ski tours, paddleboard and kayak rentals Basically, all the summer fun things you need to add to your summer vacation. On today's episode of Topsail Insider, experience a new level of luxury on Topsail Island at Saltwater Suites in Surf City, north Carolina. With no nightly minimum, you can enjoy short getaways or an extended stay. Each suite features luxury bedding, full kitchens with dining tables and dishwashers, and all suites other than the three ADA suites have full-size washers and dryers. And don't forget about those beautiful ocean views. 24-7. Self-check-in provides a hassle-free and seamless experience. Saltwater Suites is the perfect choice for your next beach getaway. Book your next Topsail visit at saltwatertopsailcom or call 910-886-4818. Or call 910-886-4818.
Speaker 1:Saltwater Suites Topsail Island's premier luxury hospitality experience. Come on out to Surf City Line for the best made-from-scratch beach and bowls on Topsail Island. Treat yourself to their delicious bowls with shrimp, steak, fish, chicken or pork, or enjoy their peel-and-eat shrimp, beach break salads and more. They offer a full bar serving handcrafted cocktails, incredible margaritas and they proudly serve North Carolina craft beer. The line boasts the biggest deck on the island with three levels for listening to live music, relaxing in the sun, or head on up to the top deck to enjoy your meal with ocean views. Visit SurfCityLineNCcom for their full menus. The best service and beach vibes on the island await you at 2112 North New River Drive. Whether you're a local or visiting from out of town, celebrating a special occasion or just soaking up the sun with family and friends, it's always a great time at Surf City Line.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Topsail Insider. My name is Trudy Solomon and I am your host today. Today we're talking with Houston and Katie Louder. They are the owners of Surf City, Jet Ski and Water Sports. Welcome, Houston and Katie. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you for having us.
Speaker 4:What's up? Glad to be here.
Speaker 2:We have lots of fun activities folks can do around here during the summer and beyond, just hanging out on our beautiful beaches, and we want to talk today about your business. Surf City, jet Ski and Water Sports definitely gets you off the beach chair and speeding down our intercoastal waterway. Obviously, you offer jet ski rentals, but what are the other sport rentals and services you offer?
Speaker 4:So, yeah, we do jet ski rentals primarily. However, we do offer guided tours and guided adventures, where we take people out and we see other parts of the waterway pretty much from here all the way down to Carolina Beach. We also do stand-up paddleboarding kayaking, and we'll be introducing paddleboard yoga this summer as well.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of activity and that's a long distance too. I like that. About what? A 55-mile round trip for our longest two-hour guided ride. Yep, well, you're located at 512 Roland Avenue. This is where your office and your docks are both located.
Speaker 4:That's correct.
Speaker 2:How far can folks go away from the dock? What is the riding area? Talk about that, because you said all the way to Carolina Beach.
Speaker 4:Well, for our guided rides it really varies. We can run from Surf City all the way down to Carolina Beach. For our freestyle rentals we ride between the two bridges of Topsail, so you have the Surf City Bridge and the North Topsail High Rise. That's a nine mile distance. You're free to play in the waterway in your freestyle rental anywhere in between, as long as you're staying in the channel, that's a huge area.
Speaker 2:That is a big area. Yes, tell me about Surf City Jet Ski business. How long have you been in business?
Speaker 3:We started Jet Skis in 2011 in Carolina Beach and we opened up Surf City Jet Ski Rentals in 2015. So we're going on. Our ninth year We've been in the business for 14 years.
Speaker 2:Right, so two different locations. So you've been doing jet skis longer than you've been in Surf City. Yes, right, all that's located right here within the same general area. But you're from North Carolina. You were born and raised here right.
Speaker 3:Both of us were born and raised in Albemarle, north Carolina. It's about an hour east of Charlotte, that's not coastal?
Speaker 2:Nope, not coastal.
Speaker 3:What brought you here? Yeah, so I came down to visit my brother and look for a job. It stuck, I came down. It was my first year teaching. I stayed at home through college, literally at home went to a hometown college. So I came down the first year that I was a teacher. I said I'm going to go and spend the summer at the beach, at Carolina Beach, and same so you grew up in the same area, uh-huh, we grew up together.
Speaker 2:You knew each other, uh-huh, and you both ended up in the same area here. Yep, but you weren't planning that together, no.
Speaker 3:So we remained friends all through college, high school. He actually took me to high school. He's a year older than I was, so just buddies and we reconnected. When I moved down here for the summer I started working for him, but this was your boss, that was it. This is still my boss.
Speaker 2:We'll just put that out for the public. That's great.
Speaker 4:That's great. She moved down for the summer and we kind of rekindled things, and once I rekindled I guess there was nothing really to begin with.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, yeah, I started work. That was the second year you guys were in business, so I started working for him and I was still a teacher. So it just kind of worked out and obviously we started dating that summer.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I continued working there every summer, there on after, and now you not only have a business together, you have a family together and everything that's wonderful. But you've got other adventures, so you have a new business too, besides the jet skis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have Louder's Furniture now.
Speaker 2:We sell furniture that's not related to the water sports. No, never. How did that happen?
Speaker 3:Oh man, that fell in our lap a little bit. We've been looking for something. We're selling Carolina Beach Jet Ski Rentals to one of our longest employees, since we live in Surf City now it's just not feasible to go to Carolina Beach and he wanted to continue, so he's actually buying it. We knew we needed something else to supplement losing that in the future and we went to buy some furniture in Sneeds Ferry. My last birthday my mom was going to buy us some outdoor poly furniture.
Speaker 2:And we met Mr Tommy. Instead of just buying some outdoor furniture, you bought the store Pretty much. I mean that's interesting. So now you've got these two businesses, they obviously have different clientele, probably different busy seasons. How is this working?
Speaker 3:It's working. This will be our first season with both. So far so good. Houston has been primarily at the furniture store right now to do the deliveries, to unload the trucks. I'm at the jet ski dock Until jet skis break. Then that'll flip-flop and he'll be at the jet ski dock. But so far so good. The furniture store really just triggered us one because we wanted something that was ours, that we owned. We own the land. So you know we're not dealing with leases and it's not as insurance-driven, it's not as weather-driven. It is still pretty seasonal. We think we definitely have been busier with dealing with rental houses, but it's more year round and definitely with furniture. We're dealing with locals, with jet skis we mainly deal with tourists. So it is completely different clientele.
Speaker 2:So your jet ski business back to that. You start. Tell me your season for that? Typically Easter to Labor Day.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you're ready to go by Easter and you've got that up and running certainly by now oh yeah, we're there. You've done this business for years and you had two locations and now you're going down to just the Surf City location. Tell me what you do, what equipment you have, what you do to prepare for the season.
Speaker 4:We don't, we just guess Such a lot Houston does.
Speaker 3:Houston spends all winter I don't what's the correct term getting the jet skis ready, because we sell them.
Speaker 2:We redo our jet skis every year.
Speaker 3:We've been doing that for I don't know how many years. It took a while to get there, but we've learned that's great for our business. So we sell them. So Houston spends all winter getting them ready to sell, getting the new jet skis ready there's things he does to them to get them ready, getting the docks ready Just a ton of the maintenance and mechanical side. We both spend a lot of time on the website. We pour into our website every single year.
Speaker 2:Well, keeping that updated is important, especially like you said, you have a lot of tourists, so that's one of the first places they'll go.
Speaker 3:We drive people to the website. That's our hub.
Speaker 2:All right. So the two of you have your businesses. Tell us about your family.
Speaker 3:We got a little seven-year-old going on 70. Maverick, that's our little buddy. We had him soon after we got married we both, I think, before we got married. And when we got married we did not know if we wanted kids, didn't know, it wasn't hard, no, it wasn't hard, yes. But we decided once we got married well, we'll just see what happens. And it happened real quick. So Maverick came into our life the first summer that we opened Surf City Jet Ski Rentals, I was pregnant, I was working at Carolina Beach by myself. Basically, houston was driving up here from Carolina Beach, and that was a summer. Yeah, it was busy. That was busy. I was big and pregnant and tired, trying to stay in a good mood for all your customers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was tough.
Speaker 3:That was really tough and I swear that was the hottest summer to the books.
Speaker 2:It probably wasn't but to me it was so where's.
Speaker 3:Maverick now in the picture. Maverick is at Surf City Elementary. He loves it. That's one reason we wanted to be in Surf City. We love the community. So Maverick thinks he is in charge of the jet ski regional dock. He actually just what. Two days ago he was docking jet skis. He was down there with his hands on his hips waiting on the customers to get back. He tells all of his friends at school that y'all are going to work for me at Surf City Jet Ski Rounds when we get older. Yeah, we're in trouble. He is. He's very bossy and we keep asking. I wonder where he gets that from.
Speaker 2:Katie, katie. Okay, if I showed up tomorrow to get a jet ski, I would run into Maverick.
Speaker 3:Most of the time. So he goes. He spends know this, being in Sur City. Everybody's a family there. All the business owners are friends with each other. We have each other's back. So when they started doing that full day camp what it's been three years ago, he's been going and it's awesome because they come to Soundside Park to eat lunch. So like we get to see him, his counselors will walk him across there During the weeks. He shows up like all of our employees are, like his big brothers and big sisters and since he's the only child that really works out, to provide that for him.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about your employees just more than just you two running things. You've got a lot of good help.
Speaker 3:We have 17 employees right now 17.
Speaker 2:I know the Jet Ski place you're guiding people. There's a chance for someone misunderstanding something or having some kind of trouble. So I love that you have a lot of good staff, so tell me about them and what you require.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's been a learning curve but we have been so blessed I don't know probably since we opened Surf City. The first year was tough but we get all local kids. We have a few kids who come here for the summer. They have beach houses here, so they've grown up in the summer and then most of them are topsoil maybe Dixon and we've learned that high school and college kids are great for our job because that's when we're operating.
Speaker 3:So we used to require them to have jet ski experience, but we've since then learned that's not as important because we can teach them that you pour a lot into that, we pour a lot into that. We need trustworthy, good kids, good, respectable kids, and I don't know how, but we get them. Every single kid. That's worked for us. I mean, honestly, we become family with them. We'll have a Christmas party even though we haven't been at work for months. So we just we require that. The normal morals. I guess that's what we need.
Speaker 3:If we can get that, we can train them into a jet ski employee. We put them through first aid, cpr certification. We do it with surf city fire department. They have to have their boater's license. Obviously we require that they have to do that themselves to get that. And then Houston spends tons of time with them on the water getting them used to everything they need to know. I'd spend tons of time with them on the customer facing end and yeah, it just works. And we usually have a handful that come back throughout high school and college and workforce in the summers and they take it serious. I don't know how we've gotten them to take it so sick, but they, they get the seriousness up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they get that. They get the seriousness of it as much as fun as it can be. It is dangerous, it can be, it can be, and they know that. You can read our reviews that we get every day.
Speaker 2:It's always of how knowledgeable our employees are we're bragging a little bit about how well your staff is trained and ready for what might happen each day, but I'm going to brag a little bit more. So surf city jet ski was traveler's choice on trip advisor for 2021 and 2022 and you have a lot of great ratings. You have five star customer ratings and you have the largest riding area in north Carolina, and so you've got a lot of opportunities out there for people to come and have fun, and you do get brand new jet skis every year. Tell us about what's out there now when people show up.
Speaker 3:So right now we've got Yamaha VX. We love Yamaha. You've had.
Speaker 2:Yamaha equipment for years Yep.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so when I went to MMI MMI is Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Orlando I was trained on Yamaha products. They make a good product and we buy new skis every year, so it's super dependable, really reliable for the customer and for your sake, I think just as much.
Speaker 2:So when Katie said, when the jet skis start breaking, you have to come over and fix them, but yeah, if you have a new product that probably cuts down on those headaches and that would be a problem if a tourist was here and trying to rent and half their adventure was dealing with issues.
Speaker 4:That's right, and we don't want issues. We want a flawless experience and the customers love it.
Speaker 3:We have customers that come every year and they love like, oh, what color are the jet skis going to be this year? Oh, do they or do you?
Speaker 2:pick out different colors. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yamaha changes them, so they come out with a new color. So, like even us, we get excited. What color is it going to be this year?
Speaker 4:Okay, they're beautiful this year. Every couple of years they change the body style and different colors.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you have the old jet skis still. What do you do with those?
Speaker 4:We sell them individually, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you do that like at the end of the season or something like that?
Speaker 4:Pretty much.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. But if I bought one and I have trouble with it, do I get to call you to come fix it? No, ma'am, nope, sorry.
Speaker 3:I think you've helped us. You've had some people I definitely have, he has.
Speaker 4:But no, and we have so many people actually reaching out to hey, can you guys work on our jet skis?
Speaker 2:Oh, because there's no apparently there's not, maybe not, but you do have the experience. I love this. You have the experience with the equipment. You give your high school and college kids, you give them a lot of good training and you guys are prepared. I guess that's the point I want to make.
Speaker 3:We take it serious, people assume that we don't.
Speaker 3:I think Jet Ski Rentals have a little stigma, but we don't we take it so serious and I guess because we're together and this is our family business. Every night we go home and, okay, what happened today? What can we make better? Won't it look really good? What should we capitalize on? And that we've taken pride in that. Like we want to be the best, we want to be professional. We are not just this jet ski rental people that decided to buy two jet skis and we're going to rent them out to you. We try to stand out from everyone else that we are a legit business.
Speaker 2:That has been here and are going to be here for a long time. So what if I'm a tourist who is from inland, didn't grow up on the coast, didn't have a lot of boating or lake or anything experience around me? So I'm coming here and I've never been on a jet ski? So I want to help that person right now. Think about what they're going to encounter when they arrive. They have to come over to the dock and then what happens next?
Speaker 4:Yeah, First question can you swim? They have to come over to the dock and then what happens next? First question can you swim? Oh, yep, it's helpful, right, it is helpful. That's the first one. And then, once they sign up, they meet requirements, we have them check a few boxes on our website to get through that booking process to make sure that, okay, this is a good thing, right?
Speaker 3:And that's on the booking screen for them, so there's no surprises. Let me ask this.
Speaker 2:If there's no surprises, Let me ask this If someone wanted to walk up and wanted to get a jet ski, it's probably you guys stay so busy, you might be booked. So it's best for people to go to the website first.
Speaker 3:It's definitely best to book. When the heat of the summer hits, there's a good chance we don't have any skis sitting on the dock. Being in the middle of town, we have people constantly walk up. Hey, that takes out human error that they can see it. And here it is because there are requirements. You know you've got to swim, even though you have a life jacket on. That's what we explain to people. You've got to swim because you're scared of the water. If you can't swim and that presents an issue. You've got to be 18, obviously to rent the jet ski because you're signing legal binding documents.
Speaker 2:So they've been on the website and checked some boxes and they've show up Checked some boxes, that's about it. That's it Checked some boxes and you're going to show up and you're going to be there a lot of time, and then what happens?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, once we get them checked in, make sure all the waivers are finished properly.
Speaker 3:Check IDs, all the things.
Speaker 4:We actually spent a lot of time making a orientation video that's very basic and it ends I don't want to say complicated, but very thorough, so that anyone from anywhere can, within watching that 10-minute video, they're going to have a really good understanding of how to operate safely, navigate the waterway safely.
Speaker 4:Those two things are those are the two things. So it's a 10-minute video. Everyone sits down and watches it and they also also go through, or they have a safety checklist that they follow along with that, and there's a couple of questions at the end that just kind of trigger your brain into reverse thinking on what should I do in this situation? What should I do in that situation? That kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we give them a quiz. We've been doing the quiz for what? Two or three years? We've done that safety checklist for as long as I can remember, but we turned it into a video years ago and I revamped the video last year.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea. People are very visual. They are, and it has.
Speaker 3:Like I mean we have actual video of the jet skis in the map. We actually had one of the wildlife officers, I think from Carolina Beach, saw it not so long ago. He's like can I have this to give to all the rentals? And I was like absolutely not proprietary, we worked too hard. We did, we worked really hard on it and um sure that, like I I tell people a lot of times, our renters sometimes are more knowledgeable than some of people that are not renting on the water because we give them so much information before they go out.
Speaker 4:And it's fresh on the brain they didn't learn it five years ago, when they took online test? They learned it five minutes before they got on the jet ski. Okay, okay they.
Speaker 2:Okay, they've gone through the video and the safety and all that. They're on their jet ski, so there's a few options that y'all provide for getting out and going. You said bridge to bridge earlier, so that's from the Surf City Bridge to the North Topsail Bridge. That's right. That's the nine mile stretch, nine miles in between.
Speaker 3:For the freestyle, yeah, freestyle, okay, and that's. Is that your most common? That's our most common. One hour Most people want to go for an hour.
Speaker 4:And you get to cruise at your own speed, your own pace, and we have employees that are on the water as guides.
Speaker 3:You don't have to follow them, but they're out there making sure that you're being safe, making sure that other boaters and jet skiers aren't being unsafe, but to help you. There's constant contact on the water. That way, you can do what you feel safe doing.
Speaker 3:But talk about beyond that though, If you did something different from bridge to bridge Guided ride. So the guided ride is that you have to follow one of us because we're taking you outside of our riding area and definitely for all the locals they understand when you start heading south. Sandbars are horrible. They change every year, but there's definitely more scenery. So when you go on the guided ride, we're going a little further. You get to see a lot more. We can take you into the ocean. That's a big thing, yeah tell me about that.
Speaker 3:So, like today actually we're at 5 o'clock we are taking our employees out on the boat and jet skis, heading to Lee Island so that they can play in the ocean and get some good pictures, and we try to do that a few times during the summer. That's our team bonding. But riding in the ocean is the fun stuff. If you want to jump the waves, go in the ocean and play. But you got to be with us because that can obviously get dangerous if you fall off the jet ski in the inlet. You got to know how to navigate it. So that's what the guided ride is. We actually tell people for the guided rides. You need to be experienced to go on the guided rides because we're going further and faster it shouldn't be your very first time ever on the water.
Speaker 4:At that point, we ask people if it is your very first time ever on the water. At that point, we ask people if it is your very first time ever on the water with a ski. We want you to do the freestyle. That way you can cruise and get the feel for it at your own speed and pace and some people aren't comfortable with going on a whole big trip and it wears them out.
Speaker 2:So tell me about speed.
Speaker 4:They can go as fast as the jet ski can go, okay.
Speaker 2:Which is.
Speaker 4:Which is roughly around 50. 50? Yeah, 50 to 55. It really depends on the rider the rider weight, the water, the water conditions.
Speaker 2:The wind, the weather. Yeah, that's right, and that's fast.
Speaker 3:That is fast, that's fast. There are jet skis that go faster, but that is not safe.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask that I, but that is not safe. I was going to ask that I'm just curious my own knowledge, I didn't know how fast a jet ski will go Faster than you'd ever be comfortable with.
Speaker 3:You know, and on calm lakes, that's fine.
Speaker 2:We took some to calm lakes and I was even like nope, we're good, let's back it on down. Okay, yeah, well, good, so I love and well care of. So, like we said, a good place to start is to go to the website which is surfcityjetskirentalscom. Go there and find out information about your rentals availability and your pricing, because you can make a reservation directly on the website.
Speaker 3:All of our reservations are on our website.
Speaker 2:Someone was vacationing sometime this summer and they already have their vacation dates figured. How you encourage them to book. That Is a week in advance enough time, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 3:We have people that book. You know they book their reservation and they go ahead and book once we're open. But as long as you book like if you get down here on Saturday, like most of them do, and you book Saturday, sunday, monday you're going to be able to pick what time you want.
Speaker 2:What do you do about bad weather days?
Speaker 3:Bad weather days are bad weather days. We Go home and take a nap.
Speaker 4:Basically, we don, basically we don't see those days often.
Speaker 3:no, we really don't we don't get many rain out days anymore. I feel like we used to.
Speaker 3:We used to get like two or three days and they were the best because that was just us two we didn't have employees yeah, we were seven days a week, but no, if it's bad weather basically what we tell people if at the time of your reservation it's bad weather, we're going to reschedule you or cancel you and refund you. We tell people please do not worry about the weather, book it, we'll deal with it then, because at the beach it rains for five minutes and then it's beautiful. We really do our best to work with people. We tell a lot of people don't wait until the last day of vacation to come, because I can't tell you the amount of times it rains on Friday and they're so broken hearted that they didn't get to go jet skiing because they don't have any more time to reschedule. No-transcript, I promise you, book it, we'll deal with it. We'll move you, we'll cancel you. Whatever we got to do, we're going to make it the best for you.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So you said you has to be there, has to do the paperwork, has to rent it for them. 14 and 15-year-olds can drive with an adult on board. I think it's a learning tool. I think it's giving these kids some responsibility when they're out on the water.
Speaker 2:Oh, to put them on the front.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Now the adult on the 14 and 15-year-olds. The adult has to be on the jet ski with them, but they actually can operate and I think it's awesome. We've watched kids grow up on the jet ski dock that have been coming to us since they were little and they're 14, they get there and they're like we get to drive, and then when they're 16, they're there, they're giving me their ID. I don't even have to ask for it because they are taking their own jet ski age.
Speaker 2:What's some other important things that y'all want to tell people right now.
Speaker 4:Just do it Go.
Speaker 2:It's fun. The important thing that Houston wants everybody to know is just go do it. It's fun, it is.
Speaker 3:We have people tell us every day this is the highlight of our vacation. Yes, it overwhelms people because we do have so many rules in place. That's okay. We've gotten that feedback from a few people. Y'all got a lot of rules. Well, we got to take care of you. How much fun are you going to have when you come out here and damage a jet ski or get hurt because you didn't listen and you didn't have rules? Not that you didn't listen, it's because you didn't have rules.
Speaker 2:If you have people with large parties, how many people could go together?
Speaker 3:Typically we cap it at eight jet skis in at a time, okay, but for one party that everybody knows each other, that gets to be a lot. Everybody's out there together, but we can accommodate.
Speaker 4:We do a lot of group outings with tours. That way we can all go down, we can check out Lee Island or go down to Figure 8 in one of the inlets and we can pull the jet skis up to the beach and hop off, take a swim break. Everyone gets a good photo op and hang tight for a few minutes. And we do a shark tooth adventure with a lot of groups. That's a good one. We go down and we look for shark's teeth on one of the barrier islands, so that's always a very popular one for the groups.
Speaker 2:So how much time does some of those adventures last? That's a two-hour shark tooth.
Speaker 3:That's a two-hour shark too.
Speaker 2:That's a two-hour, and we tell people as quick as you can get to Lee Island, we go to Lee Island.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so typically they take 30 minutes to drive down there and then 30 to 45 minutes walk in the island and then come back. So you get a little bit of both you get to explore, but you also get to ride the jet ski.
Speaker 2:You probably have like a half-day adventure with your friends or family or whatever, because you should at minimum 30 minutes early, because that is where we're doing the training.
Speaker 3:Okay, and we are serious about that training. Those 30 minutes are for us. Yeah, they're mandatory. So if you get there late, you're still going to stand there with us for that time frame to get your training in.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we have talked a lot about jet skis. Maybe that's just because that's not a thing that I've done a lot of and it sounds like a lot of fun to do with family and friends. But let's talk about. You mentioned kayaking and paddle boarding. They're very popular in our area, so tell us what folks need to know about these things.
Speaker 4:Yep. So with our location, we're literally just 100 yards from the marsh, and so we can send people straight out from our dock to calm waters that have very little current and it's also a little bit protected by the wind.
Speaker 2:And not be encountering boats and other things yeah.
Speaker 3:That's the biggest thing, honestly, and you can take it to the intercoastal if you would like.
Speaker 4:So, tell me about ages and groups and things for those we recommend for solo on the paddle sports to be eight years old, that strength factor there.
Speaker 3:We're flexible on that, like our seven-year-old does both of them, and he's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not like they can show you an ID and tell you that they're eight versus seven. Yeah, and that's the thing.
Speaker 3:That's a recommendation, the paddle sports are the laid-back things that we offer Basically there's not a ton of requirements, but you provide life vests, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:And what about some people if they did fall off their board and they're in some moisture shells or whatever like they?
Speaker 3:need to. They do have to wear shoes on our paddle sports some type of shoes, because you are going to be in oyster beds and we prepare them for that and we kind of tell them too. If you're going and you start feeling the bottom, you should probably back on out of that area.
Speaker 2:So how much?
Speaker 3:time do people plan for that? Two, I'd say, is our best seller. We have some people getting kayaks for longer, but mostly two hours for both of those.
Speaker 4:A lot of early mornings and a lot of late afternoon rentals on those People just take a little cooler, yeah, we provide coolers.
Speaker 3:We have coolers and we've got the ice at the fish market, so you know we'll send them with what they want. They can fish off the kayaks if they'd like to, and we've had some success this year with kayaks, our third year with paddle boards and now we're gonna do paddleboard yoga, yeah, and now we're teaching that. Who's houston teaching, not us?
Speaker 3:lead yoga instructor right here so I've made a lot of friends at the elementary school through maverick I guess that's a mom thing, right? Yes, so one of my girlfriends her name is katie she is a yoga instructor in surf city and she actually was like, hey, I didn't realize y'all had so many paddle boards and they're right there. We're meeting her today to get the kinks worked out and get it rolling. So we're going to be offering it. I think now she's going to do like an early morning session and then like a sunset session for now.
Speaker 2:That'd be great. There'll be a lot of groups that take advantage of that. I think so too. So you guys have been together for a lot these years. I know you have a lot of good stories to share yeah, we do and so tell us something that's kind of fun to talk about we rode off on a jet ski at our wedding, did you really yeah?
Speaker 2:I have a picture in my wedding dress. He was in his tux In your bridal attire. Yeah, jet skis were part of our wedding. Now, has anybody booked your jet ski business to do that for their own wedding? No, they have not.
Speaker 3:No, we have not offered that you need to advertise that we are the getaway service that we did, like Mavericks Gender Reveal, at our jet ski dock when I was pregnant. That's where.
Speaker 2:I fell in love with Houston at the jet ski dock. So that is our life. Yeah, it's a big part of your life.
Speaker 3:Moments we like watching people grow up. People grow up. We've definitely got to watch kids grow up, whether it's customers. We also get to watch our employees grow up out there. So that's always fun because some of them start working for us when they're freshmen or sophomores in high school and then we get to watch them through high school and college. So that's one of my biggest parts. And then just watching the young kids that come and I see them each year and then they come and then they get to drive this year. That's fun. That's my favorite part is meeting the people. We've met some awesome people at the Jet Ski Doc that we are, still, to this day, friends with Facebook friends. We keep up with each other all year. They come to see us. That's my favorite part about the Jet Ski Rental business. Everybody's happy. Typically when they come to us you get a few that aren't, but everybody's happy. We get to make friends and have fun together.
Speaker 2:Well being out on the water is something that do in your everyday life. No, we take that for granted here. We do.
Speaker 3:We do, but we get people this. I've had people come to me in tears. They tell me that this was a life changer for me and they compliment how good I in Houston and our employees were to them for being so calm with us. We've had some autistic children, some disability. We do what we can.
Speaker 3:Didn't we have two grown men that were deaf. Well, we took the time to help them and I think they came back once or twice and really got them out there. That was a big moment because you could just see it in their face. Those are definitely the highlights.
Speaker 4:One of my most memorable times just riding jet skis and doing a tour. We were at Carolina Beach and we went out through the inlet. We're just having a nice ride down the beach and there's this big black thing in the water.
Speaker 3:We thought it was a flip-flopper jet ski.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this big black thing, and it was floating just on the surface and I was like, man, it's like a jet ski that's flipped over upside down, oh wow. So you could only see the bottom of the hole and I'm getting closer and closer and closer and it's moving. It's a turtle, it was a sea turtle.
Speaker 3:It was a leatherback, it was.
Speaker 4:Oh, a leatherback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so leatherback turtles are the largest sea turtle species. They can be up to 900 pounds.
Speaker 4:This thing was huge. I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 3:Where were you In Carolina Beach?
Speaker 4:Emma.
Speaker 3:Carolina Beach.
Speaker 2:They do swim here I mean they nest in North Carolina too, but not often.
Speaker 4:150 or 250 yards off the beach. So I was like dang, that's so awesome and he didn't care, we didn't get close to him.
Speaker 3:I had him on GoPro video, which has since been lost, and so we kept riding.
Speaker 4:And then there was another one, oh wow, and there was another one. We ended up seeing like five or six of them.
Speaker 2:That's insane.
Speaker 4:It's just huge. Once in a while it's. I think I've seen it four times since I've been on the water starting in 2011. Stingrays, the big ones, the big ones that jump out of the water.
Speaker 2:They jump right beside you on the jet ski.
Speaker 4:And keep going.
Speaker 2:So when you are out on the jet skis, do you have a lot of good experiences with your riders getting to see dolphin? Oh gosh.
Speaker 3:Dolphins are. Very often there's no rhyme or reason, so we can't tell you. Hey, this is how or where. But most everybody came back and was like we saw dolphins. I was like, good, that's free of charge. So just y'all know.
Speaker 2:No extra charge for that. No, they see dolphins so often. I think that would be one of the biggest reasons to go out there on the waterway.
Speaker 3:I really do, and typically the dolphins are not scared. They ride with you. You definitely get to see tons of wildlife and the tours I think that's why the guided rides you're going so much further. You just got such a better chance of seeing so much more wildlife.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that about y'all's business about giving people a chance to get out and see the wildlife. I think it gives them a better appreciation for what we're trying to protect up here, so I do like that. However, people can see it whether it's playing in the ocean or out on the jet ski. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about your new adventure with your furniture store and I can't wait to hear some of the future stories that come out with that, helping families or set up their beach houses or rental businesses. I'm sure keep you busy.
Speaker 3:How's that going so far? It's going really well. It's going better than we expected. We opened fully in February. What are your hours? Tuesday through Friday 10 to 5. Saturday 10 to 2. We promised we would not open another business open on Sundays.
Speaker 4:With the water sports business. It's a very small window that we have to be open for the summer to create revenue. So being open on Sundays is par for the course on that and we don't like it, but we have to make revenue for it.
Speaker 3:The furniture store we decided would not be. What changes did you make to the furniture store? So Houston spent all winter we bought in November. He spent all winter remodeling the store. It basically was an old auto mechanic shop. It was a furniture store, but he spent all winter revamping that. We sell Ashley furniture right now we sell Furniture of America New Classic and we have three or four poly vendors for outside Amish-made poly vendors, so we sell both.
Speaker 3:A lot of people don't know that we have indoor furniture because you ride by and you just see all this outdoor furniture. So we have picked up and we still constantly, every day I'm on there trying to find the next newest vendor that we can bring on, and we're really wanting to be affordable. We are not interior designers, that's not us. We're a furniture store. You come, you need a couch Okay, we've got a couch you can take home. You need a mattress? We got one of those too and we're really trying to be that middle of the road furniture store with reasonable prices but great products. So that's, we're spending a lot of time. I'm pretty sure I've market researched everything, because I've changed every piece of furniture in my house since we bought it.
Speaker 2:Oh, you've tried it out, that's what.
Speaker 3:I, I'm trying it out for everybody.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a great plan, Petey.
Speaker 4:We'll never turn a profit.
Speaker 3:But we'll have new furniture.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 2:No, I will I understand, it would be hard for me to sell something that I couldn't speak to personally.
Speaker 3:That's right. Especially if it wasn't an industry I grew up knowing and learning, that's right, I can understand that I have faith we'll figure it out, because we always do that's right, that's right.
Speaker 4:So I can understand that I have faith we'll figure it out, because we always do. In 14 years we'll be talking about the furniture store.
Speaker 3:That's what I was just thinking, well, this is something to like. This will be Mavericks, not that the jet skis won't be, but like we own this, this is his. His name's on it. That was a big thing for us Mavericks name. We were going, his last name is louder, that's him.
Speaker 2:Well, what are some final thoughts? I mean, we're finishing up here, but what do you want the listeners to know about you or your companies?
Speaker 3:We are a small business. When people come to any of the small businesses, you are providing for a local family. I love the write-ups where you say you're buying the ballet shoes for the little girl going to ballet. That is definitely what we are. Jet skis have put food on our table for 14 years. We have worked very hard for what we have. I like to tell people, not that our parents did not provide for us, because they did, we didn't go without but what Houston and I have is from what Houston and I have done.
Speaker 2:We have started from the bottom and you're here to stay for a while we are here.
Speaker 3:This is home. Surf City is home to us. Maverick goes to school here. This is where all his friends are. We went to church on the beach Sunday and here come three or four of his little friends walking up. Like this is our community, with Surf City, jet Ski Runnels. We are here to provide something fun for the tourists and locals to do and with Louder's Furn, our goal is to be the business that people can trust, because they know Houston and I. They trust us and we're here to be a part of the community. Houston has to dial me in because somebody's like, hey, we need this for school or for the community. I'm like, okay, here.
Speaker 1:I want to give back to the community because they've given so much to us.
Speaker 3:And that's important. I want people to know that when you're giving to a small business, you're, in turn, putting money right back into that community that you love.
Speaker 2:I've seen y'all do a lot for the community. I value that too, especially like when we have families who are living here and we have kids and we do think about what the future of this area will look like for our children and what advantages and opportunities they'll have. So that's good. I love that You've been instrumental in supporting the schools and the churches and lots of nonprofits, teaming up with other local business owners.
Speaker 3:I think that's the beauty of Surf City All the business owners have each other's backs. That's true. We all have the common goal and we support each other. I love that more than anything. We didn't have that in Carolina Beach, not to speak negatively, but Surf City has it.
Speaker 2:Does the furniture store have a?
Speaker 3:website too. It does. I've gone a little crazy the last couple weeks over that website, but same thing we want the website to be the place Everybody shops online. We obviously want you to come in the store, but I want you to be able to sit on your couch at night and get on our website and see what I have in my store which is on there. We have our in-stock pages and you also can shop all of the thousands of products that we can order and get in quickly.
Speaker 2:So tell us that. Tell us where to find the jet ski stuff. Tell us the websites. Tell us if anybody's out there and just listen to this and doesn't have pen and paper, where can they locate you the easiest?
Speaker 3:So for the jet skis, honestly it's as simple as Googling jet ski rentals in Surf City or Surf City Jet Ski Rentals is our name, so that's going to come up. We are surfcityjetskirentalscom. You'll find our website. You'll find our Yelp. Everything Louder's Furniture we are working on and I hope in the next couple years it'll be just as visible online as Surf City Jet Screens. It's already great. But loudersfurniturecom Spell louder's for me. L-o-w-d-e-r-s furniturecom Perfect. That's a Stanley County name because nobody knows it here we go home and everybody knows it louder at home. We get loader loaders. Oh, you're the loaders. Okay, but yeah, if you google furniture stores, sneeds fairy, we should pop up. We've worked really hard on that already in the last couple months. But yes, our website, we work really hard. Social media is not the best because we're not good at it, but we're trying yeah, you can keep up with socials.
Speaker 4:We um try to post what we're doing we do like a daily deal from the furniture store and try to move some stuff at like crazy low prices.
Speaker 2:I've seen some references though other businesses around town who've maybe had your poly furniture sitting outside and there's a sign saying you know it was from you and has a QR code and things like that. That's a good way to get out, get your name out there too. So I hope we've given people a chance to know what you offer and, like I said, they're two totally different businesses, but I can understand the rhythm of it all and just the desire and capacity to do this as a family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's our biggest thing. Even if we're at work, we're typically together. So, maverick's with us, we're together. That's our biggest goal. I don't With us, we're together. That's our biggest goal. If I'm going to spend time at work, I'm not going to be without my family. So even at night I have some hard times where I'm like, oh my gosh, we're working every day. But then I try to put it in respect of we're together and that is what matters.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for being here. I thank all the listeners for joining us today. Katie in Houston, thank you for being part of Topsail Insider and telling us all about Surf City, Jet Ski and Water Sports and Louders Furniture Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4:This was fun. Yeah, thanks for having us Good time.
Speaker 1:Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode of Topsel Insider, please show your support by clicking the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can also follow us on Facebook, instagram, twitter and YouTube. Please also go to TopselInsidercom and join our mailing list by clicking on the Make Me a Topsoul Insider button. While you're there, you can click the Send Me a Voicemail button and let me know exactly what you're thinking your message just might be on an episode of Topsoul Insider. You can email me at krista at topsoulinsidercom, or call or text me at 910-800-0111. Thank you for listening and supporting Topsail Insider and our local businesses and nonprofits. These are our neighbors and our friends, and together we build a mighty and a beautiful community I'm super proud to be a part of. I'll see you around Topsail.
People on this episode
Eden Mills
Host
La Rhea Burke
Host
Mari Backus
Host
Marlon Weems
Host
Savannah Price
Host
Tony Sampogna
Host
Trevonn Caesar
Host
Trudy Solomon
Host
Leah Norman
Co-host
Christa
Producer
Ernie Mezich
Editor
Jim Mendes-Pouget
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