Top Shelf Kicks is located in Caldwell, New Jersey, and it may be the most slept-on goldmine of ’90s nostalgia on the East Coast.
Founded by Aaron G., Top Shelf Kicks is a veritable time capsule of ’80s and ’90s nostalgia. Complete with a Nintendo 64, one of the most extensive vintage Authentic jersey collections I’ve ever seen, more vintage toys than you can even comprehend, And1 mixtapes, and tons of kicks, Top Shelf is not playing.
“Growing up, me, my brother, and my dad used to go to flea markets a lot,” Aaron told George Kiel in the episode. “I was into sports, video games, and cool stuff so anytime I could collect that stuff I would.”
Aaron, who comes from humble beginnings, is also doing more at Top Shelf than hawking limited kicks. With a store full of vintage items, he’s teaching the new generation about more than Drake and Kanye. The shop is also buy-sell-trade, so there’s a huge range of inventory at many different price points.
“Growing up, I used to go to sneaker stores with my friends — I didn’t have the money to buy these sneakers — but it was always great to go look at the shoes…drool, window shop” Aaron told George Kiel.
“A lot of these sneaker stores they just don’t treat you right. They don’t talk to you, they don’t treat you like a human, they just want your money. They sit behind a desk, they don’t interact,” he continued. “There are no price tags on basically everything in this store [Top Shelf]. There’s a reason for that: a. the market changes every single day, but b. I talk to every single person that comes in this store. Why? Because that’s how I wanted to be treated growing up.”
I haven’t seen George Kiel this excited in a while so this isn’t an Open the Box episode to miss. Check it out below (be sure to stick around until the end) and share your thoughts in the comments. You can check out @topshelfkicks on Instagram for more.
If I could live inside of this place I would.
Im teary eyed watching this