Complex Magazine just featured Burn Rubber in the retail section of their website. You can check out what they said on Complex.com or after the jump.

STORE: Burn Rubber
CITY: Royal Oak, MI
SINCE: 2004
OWNED BY: Rick Williams and Roland Coit
PRICES: $$$ (out of 5)

WHY WE COSIGN: With all the talk of the diminished auto industry and its effect on Detroit’s economy, it’s hard to think of any business prospering in the Motor City in 2009. Especially a small boutique that sells a cool crop of limited edition sneakers, t-shirts and fitteds. If you believe CNN and Fox News, people in the D are too cash strapped and depressed to conspicuously drop dough on the latest wares to stay fly, right? If that’s the case, no one told Rick Williams and Roland Coit, owners of one of Detroit’s hottest shops, Burn Rubber…

Originally founded in 2004, the shop struggled until Rick and Roland took over and completely turned the store around in 2007. Seeing the potential in the 680 square foot store, the new owners decided to stock the shelves with a wide assortment of brands and styles, making it clear that their motto is quality and quantity. Did we mention that the Burn Rubber x New Era fitteds have taken the nation by storm? The brand has also been getting shine from Detroit natives Big Sean and Mike Posner and has even managed to land itself in Northwest Airlines Skymiles magazine. Not to mention they plan on opening a new location. Seems pretty damn prosperous to us.

BRANDS CARRIED: Burn Rubber Private Label, Stüssy, 10.Deep, Crooks & Castles, Play Cloths, Acapulco Gold, Diamond Supply, New Era, UNDFTD, Concepts, Black Scale, Nike, adidas, New Balance, Supra, Puma, Pro-Keds, Gourmet, and Jordan.

MOST POPULAR ITEMS: Burn Rubber Private Label New Era Fitted Caps.

Complex: What was the inspiration behind Burn Rubber, and how has it influenced the overall look and feel of your store?
Rick Williams: Detroit is the Motor City and its culture is mainly inspired by the auto industry. Burn Rubber is a term that used to be used in street racing. Cars have tires and we have sneakers. That’s where the name came from. We try do do things that make sense for us here in the mid-west. We are proud of where we are from and we try to represent.

Complex: What are your retail plans for the future?
Rick Williams: We have another location in the works now.

Complex: Any anticipated collaborations?
Rick Williams: We definitely have some collaborations in the works. All I can say is that they are with some reputable sneaker and clothing companies. Stay tuned for more info.

Complex: What are the next trends in men’s style?
Rick Williams: I think that things are going to tone down. Not as much of the bright colors and crazy graphics. I think that there is going to be more focus on the smaller details and quality of materials.

The Detroit News ran a nice feature on Burn Rubber June 2007, shortly after Rick & Ro took over ownership. You can read the entire article after the jump.

Sneaker store stocks the hard-to-find shoe
Owners confess they are both ’sneakerheads,’ who understand the urban clothing culture.
Author: Special to The Detroit News
Alexa Stanard
Section: Business
Page: 02C
Dateline: ROYAL OAK

ROYAL OAK — Burn Rubber, an urban sneaker store specializing in hard-to-find shoes, wants to be a top destination for Metro Detroit shoppers hunting for the perfect pair of treads.

Friends, first-time business owners and self-proclaimed “sneakerheads” Rick Williams, 26, and Roland Coit, 28, bought the shoe store in February from previous owner Rachel Graybill-Carroll. The duo expanded the store’s offerings to include clothing, added sneaker lines and gave the space a more urban feel, painting graffiti along the back wall and bringing in a 1984 Nintendo 8-Bit that customers can play.

“We’re trying to be the spot for streetwear culture in Detroit,” Coit said.

The store sells unusual and limited-edition sneakers like New Balance Tier 1 Shoguns, Adidas Metro and Nike Quickstrike. Quickstrike is only available in boutiques, and many of Burn Rubber’s shoes are available at only a handful of Michigan stores. Prices can inch toward $200, but most pairs cost less than $100.

Coit and Williams said they’re tapping into a sneakerhead culture that views shoes as collectibles and prizes originality, exclusivity and quality.

“The whole culture is built on hype,” Coit said. “Pictures of shoes are on the Internet six months before they’re available. There’ll be 30,000 to 40,000 people wanting shoes they’re only going to make 1,000 pairs of.”

Coit was the first of the two to develop a passion for sneakers, ignited when he spotted a pair of Nike Heineken Dunks. He found them on eBay for $150 and immediately hopped in his car to buy them from their owner in Lansing. Coit turned Williams on to sneaker culture; the two once drove to New York in a snowstorm so Coit could buy a new pair of Bapes, a popular Japanese brand.

Both became customers of Burn Rubber, and Williams helped create the store’s Web site in exchange for free shoes. Coit had been mulling starting his own business when Graybill-Carroll approached him about buying the store. He decided he could make a go of it if he had a partner, and asked Williams to come on board.

They added men’s and women’s clothing by lines like Crooks and Castles and 10 Deep, including hoodies, fitted caps and jackets. A popular line of T-shirts reads “I have more shoes than my girl does.” They added shirts of their own design and sell graffiti art. The clothing has been a key source of revenue, Williams said.

Opening the shop has meant a sharp learning curve as the two tackle the demands of running a business and find ways to balance their other endeavors — Coit is a DJ, Williams teaches tap dancing and both are in a band.

But despite the challenges, and the difficulties facing many retail shops in Michigan’s current economic climate, the store is performing well, Williams said.

“People want to be fly anyway, whether they have money or not.”

Copyright (c) The Detroit News. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.
Record Number: det30137995

Metromode did a nice little feature on Burn Rubber on June 25, 2009. Check the full article on their website or after the jump.

Burn Rubber creates niche footprint in Royal Oak
Downtown Royal Oak is known for its boutiques but few have as many unique aspects as Burn Rubber.

The small business is more than a shoe store, it’s a sneaker boutique. Customers don’t come in to buy shoes. Sneakerheads spend days in line Star Wars-style to buy kicks that double as art and status symbols.

“We sell a lifestyle,” says Roland Coit, co-owner of Burn Rubber. “It’s more about being your own person. Most of the stuff we have they only make 1,000 pairs or 500, or even less, and they sell out fast. It’s a lifestyle of exclusivity.”

It explains why Coit and his partner Rick Williams need only 480 square feet of space and six people to do business. It’s unnecessary to have a large retail floor for shoes that come in short supply, like Nike Air Yeezys (Kanye West’s shoe) and Clark Kent Air Force 1s.

These shoes are often made of expensive leather and horse hair. It explains why prices can get into the $300s for a pair or even higher. Coit and Williams even know where to point people who are looking for personalized shoes with graffiti-like art.

“That makes a shoe that much more limited,” Coit says. “It makes it one of a kind.”

Source: Roland Coit, co-owner of Burn Rubber
Writer: Jon Zemke

This article was posted on April 9, 2009 when Strictly Fitteds first caught wind of the Burn Rubber New Eras. Check out what they had to say on their site or after the jump.

Burn Rubber Sneaker Boutique
BURN RUBBER SNEAKER BOUTIQUE is Metro Detroit’s first exclusive sneaker and street wear boutique, located in Royal Oak, Michigan.Burn Rubber’s New Era fitted program is only one part of the brand’s movement that includes apparel, watches and accessories. Pictured in this post are cap styles currently in stock: Camo, Cool Gray, and Detroit Tigers Home color ways. Burn Rubber pieces are produced in runs of 30 – 50 with full size ranging from 7 to 8. Keeping things on the limited tip, they don’t do re-orders on sold out styles.

Strictly Fitteds covered the release of the “BR” Burn Rubber New Era on April 23, 2009. Check out what they had to say after the jump or on StrictlyFitteds.com.

BURN RUBBER x NEW ERA BR 59Fifty Fitted Cap
BURN RUBBER BOUTIQUE has a new edition to their NEW ERA fitted baseball cap program. The BR fitted features oversized letters embroidered up front and the Burn Rubber mascot on the back. This 59Fifty dropped yesterday and is available now at Burn Rubber retail store.

High Snobiety posted the Burn Rubber Custom G-Shock on March 30, 2009. Check out what they had to say in this post or on their website.

G-Shock x Burn Rubber
Detroit sneakers and clothing boutique Burn Rubber got together with G-Shock to collaborate on a watch. The at first classic looking G-Shock, comes in black and features the stores logo on the strap and on the watch case. They embossed their logos, making it all very subtle and added an all black screen to the watch. Via Frank The Butcher.

Have a more detailed look at the G-Shock x Burn Rubber Collaboration Watch after the jump.

Hypebeast posted about the Custom Burn Rubber G-Shock on March 29, 2009. Read what they had to say after the jump or on their website.

Burn Rubber x Casio G-Shock DW-5600
Detroit sneaker and clothing retailer Burn Rubber sees a preview of their upcoming G-Shock DW-5600 model. Held down by Rick and Ro, the two have put together a solid time piece. Despite the mostly black design, the watch includes some strong details including a debossed strap and engravings in the watch’s face. No word yet on an official release date.

Vapor Magazine featured Burn Rubber in the Unique Shops section of their magazine in August of 2009. The full article can be found in this post or on Vapor Magazine’s website.

Unique Shops | BURN RUBBER | Royal Oak, MI
When Burn Rubber owners Rick and Ro took over this sneaker boutique in Detroit’s suburbs, the place was composed primarily of Nike merch and running enthusiast gear. But over the past year and a half the store has evolved to embody the personalities of its new owners. Rick is a former Finishline manager with jokes for days, and Ro is a fierce emcee, equally well known for his Crayola-spectrum kicks. Now Burn Rubber is at the forefront of Detroit’s lace-you-with-fly-shit, sneaker-and street-culture outfitters. Carrying 10.Deep, Crooks & Castles, Leroy Jenkins, Kid Robot and all the goods, Rick and Ro also sell their own designs and have begun a complete line expected to be out this fall. Fitteds and tees sporting the Burn Rubber Chef logo move quickly and have proven to be bestsellers. Local legends such as Slum Village and Black Milk can be found perusing the product regularly, and guests can wind up at in-store album listening parties or embroiled in impromptu debates about hipster-hop or how to rock a 59fifty. Go to Burn Rubber for the nasty spread of limited-edition swagger; stay for the familial atmosphere Rick and Ro have created.

L.C. Weber

This is an article on the Air Yeezy release at Burn Rubber from the June 5, 2009 issue of the Detroit News. The article can be read in full in this post or on the Detroit News website. 

Air Yeezys: Fans line up for days in Royal Oak to nab a pair
Sneakerheads camp outside store for Kanye West’s latest Nike shoe
Adam Graham / The Detroit News

Monday afternoon, at around 4 o’ clock, Dayon Jenkins and Josh Sanders arrived at Burn Rubber, a sneaker boutique in downtown Royal Oak.

They’ve been there ever since.

A few hours later, Dariante Dubose showed up outside the store, and he has spent the last several days camped out on the sidewalk, listening to his iPod and waiting patiently for Saturday morning to come.

Why, you ask? Playoff tickets? An exclusive concert? Not quite.

Jenkins, Sanders and Dubose — along with around a dozen other sneakerheads in Royal Oak and hundreds more in other locations across the country — are in line waiting for their chance to buy a pair of Air Yeezys, the exclusive, elusive Nikes designed by hip-hop hitmaker Kanye West. They go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday.

West’s Air Yeezys have caused quite a stir in the sneaker world. Each of the designs — Saturday marks the third, and supposedly final, release in the line — have been instant sellouts, and have resold for hundreds of dollars above their $215 retail price (Recession? What recession?) on online auction sites such as eBay.

The shoes are extremely limited-edition. Burn Rubber is one of only two retail outlets in Michigan — the other is Puffer Red’s in Ypsilanti — that will be carrying them, and they’re only receiving around 15 pairs to sell.

Two-day lineups greeted the release of the first Yeezys in April; the wait was slightly longer for the second pair in May. The five-day wait, though, places the third Yeezys — which come in a tan color known technically as “net/ net” — in full-blown phenomenon territory.

“I just wanted something no one else was going to have on,” says Jenkins, 19, of Detroit, looking surprisingly spry after having spent several days outdoors. He says he arrived two days early for the release of the second Yeezys in May and was too late, so he promised himself he wouldn’t blow his third opportunity at scoring a pair of the sneakers.

To pass time in line, Jenkins has spent a lot of time chatting and playing cards with his fellow campers. They’ve placed coins on the nearby train tracks and watched them get flattened. On Wednesday night, they broke out a game board and played Monopoly.

People waiting in line have created their own rules for their society: They’re allowed a brief respite to go home and shower, and most have slept in cars parked nearby, as opposed to sprawling out on the unforgiving sidewalk. They are allowed to make food runs. “We’ve eaten at that McDonald’s twice,” says Sanders, 18, of Detroit, pointing to the Golden Arches nearby.

Camping out for shoes is nothing new, notes Elliott Curtis, who taught a course on sneaker culture at Carnegie Mellon University. He says multiple Air Jordan releases have been met with long lines and overnight stays.

What makes the Yeezys so popular, he says, is the combination of Kanye West, who has become a fashion icon as well as a controversial figure on the pop music landscape; Nike, long the gold standard in sneaker branding; and the “intentional scarcity” of the shoes themselves.

Besides, the shoes — which combine elements of Air Jordans along with the futuristic kicks Marty McFly wore in “Back to the Future II,” and feature glow-in-the-dark soles — are nothing to scoff at. “It’s a really appealing sneaker,” says Curtis, 22.

There’s the social aspect to the long wait, as well. Jenkins says it was a bit of an experiment as well as an endurance test, and Dubose — who is waiting in line with his mother — came out for the experience as well as well as the sneakers.

“I’m making connections with people,” says Dubose, 18, of Detroit. “I get new shoes and new friends.”

agraham@detnews.com (313) 222-2284

This is an article on Burn Rubber from the May 13, 2009 issue of the Detroit News. The article can be read in full in this post or on the Detroit News website.

Burn Rubber A Hot Spot For Cool Kicks
Royal Oak boutique aims to put the freshest sneaks on your feet
Adam Graham / The Detroit News

The story of Burn Rubber begins like the set-up to a joke — a rapper and a tap dancer walk into a shoe store… — but there’s no punchline to this tale.
Instead, Burn Rubber, the hip downtown Royal Oak sneaker boutique — the words “shoe store” don’t really do it justice — is making a name for itself as one of the trendiest spots in Metro Detroit, and its proprietors Roland Coit (the rapper) and Rick Williams (the tap dancer) are fast becoming two of the area’s hottest tastemakers.

Go to any hip-hop concert in Detroit and you’re bound to see at least a dozen kids wearing Burn Rubber attire, from fitted hats bearing the Burn Rubber logo, to the store’s custom-made T-shirts. And if you see someone sporting the latest limited-edition kicks on their feet, the ones you thought they only carried in New York or Chicago, they probably got those at Burn Rubber, too.

Meanwhile, the store itself, a cozy, 680-square-foot shoebox one block east of the Royal Oak Music Theatre, has become a meeting place for hip-hop heads, skater kids and professional athletes. Its atmosphere is a mix of the neighborhood barbershop and funky record store, with people congregating inside to talk about whatever’s on their minds first and shop second.

“It’s almost like a bar,” says Coit, the older of the two partners, dressed in a crisp white T-shirt and a clean pair of blue jeans, a necklace bearing the Burn Rubber character — a bionic chef by the name of CSI (short for Chef So Ill) — dangling from around his neck.

“After you deal with your wife, your kids, your job, sometimes you just want to come up here and let go,” says Coit, who raps under the name Octane. “Sometimes it’s like we’re putting on a show, we’re in here joking and laughing, and everyone’s bent over from laughing so hard. We can be talking about anything from religion to politics to this dude’s bike outside. It can be anything.”

Frequenter Lawrence Lamont Jenkins of Detroit says he visits Burn Rubber twice a week. “It’s like I’m walking into a room in my house, and family is there,” the 20-year-old says.

A business proposal
The relaxed, inviting air of the store leads some to believe its all fun and games, all the time, for Burn Rubber’s two owners. But Coit and Williams, who are both married fathers living in Auburn Hills, have been grinding over the past two years to build their brand and make the store what it is today.
Coit, 30, and Williams, 28, took over Burn Rubber in February 2007. Williams was maintaining the Web site for original owner Kenny Carroll when the opportunity arose to buy the store from his boss. Williams, who was born in Milwaukee and moved to Clarkston while in high school when his father got a job with General Motors, called his friend Coit with a business proposal.

At the time, Coit was working in customer service at Chrysler Financial after dropping out of Eastern Michigan University, and was ready for a change from cubicle life, to the point where he says he would “rather do something illegal” than work in a cubicle.

Once their finances were in order and they purchased the store, they gave the space a top-to-bottom makeover. Up came the red carpet in favor of a clean hardwood finish, and they had the walls painted and new shelves installed. The only fixtures remaining from the original store are several hanging lamps. They worked on developing their brand, liberally borrowing ideas from other boutiques they admired.

“We looked at them like Kobe Bryant looked at Michael Jordan,” Coit says. “We looked at the top stores that do what we do and said, ‘OK, now what can we do?’ ”

They applied for merchandise accounts, and waited for six months before Nike granted the store its golden seal of approval. Then Coit and Williams started selling custom-made T-shirts, with slogans such as “Got Kicks?” and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Rock Fake Kicks.”

Part of what made the brand successful is the fact that, simply put, Coit and Williams have good taste, says Detroit rapper Big Sean, a longtime customer and Burn Rubber loyalist.

“Their original brand is very in tune with fashion and today’s youth,” says Sean, who owns around 20 Burn Rubber hats and wears a Burn Rubber varsity coat in a soon-to-drop music video. “It seems like all the young people who are trendy and who are fashion forward, at least in Detroit, are wearing their stuff.”

Beyond that, he says Coit and Williams are good people, and the store has a cool atmosphere.

“It has a very comfortable vibe,” Sean says. “I know a lot of people that go up there to just hang out and politic, and it’s not a bad place to do that,” he says.

Shoes are the first step
As the store and the brand have grown, the two owners haven’t slowed.

“We never stop,” says Williams, who studied business at Oakland University, and earned money on the side by cutting hair for friends.

“We’ve had times when we’re supposed to be with our families and we’re on the phone doing orders. For hours. Or I’ll call Ro and ask him, ‘What do you think about this idea?’ and we’re supposed to be sitting there watching TV with our wives and children.”

And it’s far from just shoes they’re selling. Burn Rubber also carries T-shirts, watches and hats, and the store owners have used their connections to host in-store appearances for hip-hop artists coming through Detroit (see Thursday’s Wale event) and to wrestle a couple of regional exclusives.

When late Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla’s Los Angeles-based record label was set to release a limited-edition Dilla box set last year, Coit tracked down the label’s sales manager and got him to send some to the store. Similarly, when the label released a limited-edition T-shirt for Dilla’s mother earlier this year, Burn Rubber was the only retail outlet in Michigan that carried the shirt.

Burn Rubber has also become one of only two outlets in Michigan to carry Kanye West’s limited edition Nike sneakers, the highly sought-after Air Yeezys. There was a two-day lineup outside the store when the most recent style was unveiled earlier this month, and the store received about a dozen pairs to sell, one of every size between size 8 and 13.

Coit says prior to Burn Rubber, such exclusives skipped Michigan; but now people are starting to pay attention. “We’re talking to our reps and they’re telling their bosses, ‘We have a scene like that here in Detroit.’ When stuff like that happens, it’s good for us. It used to be when we wanted something that was limited edition, we’d have to go out to New York, or send someone to Tokyo and hope they came back with the right shoe. Now it’s to the point where we’re starting to make that happen here.”

And that “here” may soon become more than just Royal Oak. Coit and Williams say they’d like to extend the Burn Rubber brand by opening more locations, but not quite yet.

“We probably could do another store right now, but it’s not the right time,” says Williams.”We want to master this, and I don’t want to open up another store and overextend ourselves, because then we’re killing the business, and the business is the most important thing.”

As the business grows, however, it’s hard not to notice one effect it’s had on the two young owners: Both have a few gray hairs sprouting from their closely cropped heads. But Coit shrugs it off.

“Man,” he says, laughing, “I’d rather have a whole head of gray hair than work in a cubicle.”

agraham@detnews.com (313) 222-2284