<body><div>Mike Reinhardt and Mike Kololyan are Rockaway Beach-born-and-bred surfers who, in Reinhardt’s words, “are very much yin and yang of each other: Polar opposites and exactly the same.”The duo grew up running with overlapping crowds and knew one another during their teen years, but came together in their early 20s after, as Reinhardt tells it, he (for one) had not discovered any sort of vocation, but rather what he didn’t want to do: “That was go into the city every day, put on a suit and tie, and work a traditional 9-5 job.”In 2012, with only a couple of other surf schools in the neighborhood at the time, Mike and Mike opened up shop that summer as surf instructors hoping to merely break even. Flash forward a decade and change and the duo now has a storefront that functions as a (very welcome) cafe, as well as a surf-community gathering and storage location that lends itself as sort of a clubhouse, too: City dwellers don’t want to have to leave personal items on the beach, take surfboards on the A Train, and so on, and everyone appreciates the beachside business that opens its doors as a gear locker for the crosstown travelers, especially in winter.“For years, we would get funny responses from people even just finding out you could surf, let alone in the winter in New York City. Wear the right gear–you wouldn’t snowboard in your bikini or boardshorts. And wetsuits were significantly getting better right around that time when we were starting out. People would come out and we’d say, ‘Trust us, let us change your mind’ after having surfed with us all summer. They’ll slowly put on the gloves and the boots…and hey, it can actually be pretty fun as long as you prepare for it and choose the right day.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=20hZMj_0wOz1ywW00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=20hZMj_0wOz1ywW00" width="960" height="400" ><figcaption>@nllosquad</figcaption></figure>Introducing winter surfing to otherwise skeptical, fair-weather students turned out to be something of a double-edged sword for Mike and Mike, who, yes, enjoyed winter waves in virtual solitude, but (and I can attest) the “off-season” crowd factor has swollen. “It’s so crowded,” says Reinhardt, “but this is what a vibrant surf community looks like: good waves, not just good weather.”Teaching, especially year-round, took other tolls, too. “At first, I surfed a whole hell of a lot more [than I had before starting the school]. Mike and I were literally doing everything. We would be in the water teaching for 8 hours a day. It was mentally and physically exhausting. As soon as that was done, we’d have to go back, get on the phone, get on the computer. And because we were young we thought we had to go out and be part of the social scene. Then we were up again at 5:30 in the morning.”And there were growing pains associated with a burgeoning business, too: “You become a victim of your own success, finding yourself on your computer or behind a desk so much…you say ‘Dude, I own a couple surf businesses and I haven’t been in the water in two weeks. This doesn’t make any sense at all.’”A couple of long-distance surf trips per year, as well as a handful of quick-strike missions to the Caribbean or West Coast help fill their cups well enough so that they can weather the administrative rushes behind the desk.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1ng2UO_0wOz1ywW00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1ng2UO_0wOz1ywW00" width="594" height="800" ><figcaption>@katherinelincolnjewlery</figcaption></figure>“People tell me that I should actually run for mayor, but Mike [Kololyan] is mister limelight and naturally falls right into that,” Reinhardt says, explaining that he’s comfortable being at least a little more behind the scenes.Mike and Mike recently joined forces with an anonymous investor on another endeavor, taking over Connolly’s Bar, a surfer-lifeguard-beach-bum watering hole and Rockaway Beach fixture dating back to the early 1960s.“Everyone was afraid it’d get demolished and turned into condo buildings, which is kind of a trend,” Reinhardt says of the breakneck rapidity of little-box development taking place along New York City’s precious lone stretch of Atlantic shoreline. “Connolly’s is a really special place and I’d say that even if I wasn’t the owner. I still have to pinch myself a bit and feel lucky to have been able to take advantage of that opportunity to take over the business. It’s an iconic location, it’s a staple of the community, embodying that whole culture of Rockaway that existed for years and years before I was even born. It’s the kinda place where there are pictures all over the walls. You could get lost looking at all the old memorabilia, pictures, knickknacks.”“At a glance, it might seem like a departure from the surf scene,” posits Reinhardt, adding that he and the other Mike used to enjoy nightlife but are now living relatively sober lives. “But what ties everything that Mike and I do together is community. Connolly’s really does fit well within that. We try to curate community, connection, good times, and also Connolly’s is itself a beach-surf-themed bar. It’s just that the mechanism is drinks and partying, less surfing, I guess you could say.”</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

Meet the Rockaway Duo Building Community in New York’s Beloved Surf Outpost

Mike Reinhardt and Mike Kololyan are Rockaway Beach-born-and-bred surfers who, in Reinhardt’s words, “are very much yin and yang of each other: Polar opposites and exactly the same.”. The duo grew up running with overlapping crowds and knew one another during their teen years, but came together in...