Zebz Outfooter Serving a Needed Niche
Trevor Phipps
As the city of Woodland Park continues to grow, more businesses have opened their doors inside the main downtown strip.
Late last year, residents were thrilled to hear about a brand new retail hub coming into town, offering something many say the area has needed for years.
Zebz Outfooter opened last December in the heart of Woodland Park’s main strip, and since then, it has been the talk of the town. Last week, the business held its official ribbon cutting ceremony, put on by the Greater Woodland Park Chamber of Commerce.
Zebz now marks the newest retail store in Woodland Park and residents love the fact that its main product is shoes, something many have said was missing in the town. The store provides top notch hiking and mountain footwear from well-known brand names.
The store also offers a selection of shirts, socks and other mountain-style accessories. The idea of Zebz Outfooter came from owners Lynn and George Jones, who also own Colorado Gearlab that is located only two doors down.
The couple opened Colorado Gearlab around five years ago as a store that offers both new and used outdoor gear. While they were in business, they started carrying certain brands of hiking boots and footwear and the idea really took off.
“They started to sell and we felt that in order for it to do well it needed its own location,” owner Lynn Jones said. “We kept hearing time and time again that it was something the town needed. We felt we needed more retail spots in town because people want to walk around when they come into town. They want to go up and down the downtown strip and walk in and out of stores.”
Therefore, the owners decided to move their shoe section out of Gearlab and create their second retail hub centered on mountain style footwear. The building, which was once the home to Alpine Firearms on the corner of Hwy. 24 and Park Street, came up for sale and the Jones’ new that they could make it work as the perfect location.
The building has now been remodeled and it sports a nice mountain log cabin-style look. When they first start brain storming ideas for names, “Outfooter” was something that popped into George Jones’ mind.
“’Outfooter’ was kind of the first name and then we thought that nobody was ever going to get that right and that it would be ‘outfitter’ every time,” Lynn Jones explained. “So, we thought it needed a shorter name so we named it ‘Zebz’ after Zebulon Pike, the explorer extraordinaire. It was very important that we actually summited Pikes Peak together on Labor Day, which was just before we closed on the building.”
Jones said that the store plans to stay focused on quality brands by listening to what their regular customers say they want.
“One of the things we decided to do in addition to footwear was to bring in products that we always wanted to bring over to Gearlab but we weren’t sure they were the right fit,” the new store owners said.
“So here we were able to bring in Garmin products, and Dove Tail socks because they have a huge following and people love them. Cotopaxi is just such a unique product that has captured a lot of attention, so we wanted that here. So, we are kind of experimenting with some of those things that we thought would get lost at Colorado Gearlab.”
The store also carries items like Woodland Park t-shirts and water bottles for those on the move.
Customers can also purchase topographical maps to go along with their selection of top-of-the-line Garmin GPS products.
With two stores open close to each other now, shoppers have the choice of browsing through both locations and finding a large variety of brands and useful items. Lynn Jones said that they plan on expanding on what is offered at Colorado Gearlab now that they have moved their footwear over to the new location.
From now until Memorial Day Weekend, both stores will be open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sundays 12 to 5 p.m. and they are closed on Mondays.