ABY55 Co-owner, Trevor Peeples, at the front display.
ABY55’s current selection of boards.
One of the skate shop’s custom merchandise displays.
ABY55 (or “Abyss”) skate shop will be celebrating its first anniversary this weekend with a community event featuring music, food, and art. While their official anniversary is on the 16th, the festivities are scheduled for Saturday, July 15, at their shop downtown.
ABY55 began as a passion project shared between Trevor Peeples and Alex Laigo to both “escape the 9-to-5 lifestyle” and fill the clear demand for a proper skate shop in Merced. And, through their hard work and determination have made it this far, which only has motivated them further to do more as business owners as well as community members.
Their current goals as a business are to expand the shop’s merchandise offerings in addition to aiding the development of the skating community of Merced. These ambitions, among many others, include the opening of a new, more robust, skate park as well as the creation of an ABY55 skate team.
“My biggest goal outside of the business directly, which would be years down the line, is to get Merced an incredible new skatepark.” says business owner Trevor Peeples. “While we have Applegate, McNamara, and a little spot off of T street, we would like a proper ‘Merced’ skatepark that we could be known for. A safe place, with lights, bathrooms, and maybe even gates and bus stops.”
When asked about his experiences downtown and overall reception from the community, Peeples said, “Right of the bat — I think — it was a great response. And I think that it is mainly that when you do something out here that is beneficial to the community, they will support it. Merced is like no other when it comes to supporting local. This is probably the best town that I have ever lived in when it comes to local business. … The community has really backed us, I could not be more grateful. We could not have done this without them. Aby55 is for everyone!”
If you would like to take a look at some of their custom merch, you can visit their website: www.aby55.com.