At 3,000 square feet, it was surprisingly quick how fast we filled up our new warehouse with a second manual press and our giant baby, an automatic screen printing press named Carl. And the four of us would mold Choke into what it is today.Īfter less than a year in our new space, we moved next door to our current space. He brought with him an eye for design and a quick sense of humor. All the while our Print Shop continued to grow. After attending the Seattle Gift Show, we came away with several new retail outlets who believed that our tees were worthy of their empty hangers. We took with us the largest Choke collection to date and a slew of customers who continued to support us.Īs our online sales grew, we decided to branch out of the weekend markets and festivals and begin the process of finding retailers to sell our wears. At the end of 2010, we moved into an amazing 1,500 square foot space just east of Qwest and Safeco Fields in Seattle. Growing quickly, we hired our first employee. That summer we participated in our first outdoor festivals, selling our shirts just about every weekend in a new location around town. At first we delivered most orders to our customers around Seattle, since our studio was admittedly, really awkward to find. We took on as many jobs as we could find. In 2010, Jeff left his full-time job at Starbucks Corporate to manage the increasingly busy Print Shop. We opened a custom print shop (Choke Print Shop) and began printing tees for local customers who found our google listing and website.
With no windows or ventilation, we sweated through our first summer producing new designs every couple of weeks. In early 2009, due to a lack of creative control, we bought our first screen printing press and rented a 400 square foot studio space in Seattle's SODO neighborhood and began printing our own tees.
In 2008, we launched our first collection of designs online and at our semi-permanent spot (#11) at the Fremont Farmer's Market. Like many great ideas, ours started out with a "we can do better" attitude. Matt and Jeff started our little shirt company out of their apartment in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood after checking out many local t-shirt companies who frequently sold their wears at farmer's markets.
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