Kern River Surf Co.
Adventure Doesn't Wait For A Beach!
Latest from the Riverbed
Kern River Surf Co is the surf shop Bakersfield turns to for apparel and local surf gear. Rooted in Kern County, built on river life, and driven by authentic California surf culture.
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Q94 T-Shirt
$30.00 -
Bakersfield- Sun Fun Skate Surf- Sign | Kern River Surf Co T-Shirt
$35.00 -
Trout’s Dancing & Cocktails Lost Bakersfield T-Shirt | Kern River Surf Co
$35.00 -
Oildale PanAm Surf Break Tee
$35.00 -
Surf Rider at the Wonder Lodge T-Shirt | Lost Bakersfield Tiki Motel Tee
$35.00 -
Kick Ass Magic 98 Retro Bakersfield Radio Shirt
$30.00 -
KKXX Rock and Stereo Bakersfield Nostalgia T-Shirt
$30.00 -
Mudflap Surfgirls
$35.00 -
OWENS, HAGGARD, DAVIS, NEON and KNOWLIUM Tee – Bakersfield Sound Meets 80s Afterparty
$30.00 -
Pan Am World Tour of Surfing – Oildale 1977 Tee | Kern River Surf Co Vintage Canal Surf Shirt
$35.00 -
Lil’ Sparky Youth T-Shirt – Kern River Surf Co Future Legend Tee
$25.00 -
FFTP Drilling Co. “Can’t Gitt’r – Can’t Stay” Oilfield Tribute Tee
$30.00 -
Kern River Surf Co Collegiate Youth T-Shirt – Retro California Kids Surf Tee
$25.00 -
Boudreaux’s Bayou Petting Zoo Youth Tee – Kern River Surf Co
$25.00 -
Kern River Surf Co. Youth Retro Sun Tee
$35.00 -
Mudflap Surf Girls Zip-Up Hoodie – Kern River Surf Co.
$55.00
Circa 1986.
Still waiting on the San Andreas tidal wave to turn Rosedale into the beachfront capital of SoCal. Probably the first time someone tried surfing a canal with a garage door panel. Kern River Surf Co wasn’t founded then—but the attitude was. Officially “established” in 1991 (give or take), KRSCo has evolved into a nebulous surf brand with real merch, unapologetically repping Bakersfield’s landlocked wave riders and Truxtun Lakes Yacht Club dreamers as the best surf shop Bakersfield locals can claim their own.
Locally Designed. Kern-Born.
Back in the 80’s when lawn darts were legal, our friends started drawing stuff and we never told them to stop.
Pick Your Poison
Kern County: Tropical or Just Semitropic?
KERN COUNTY — TROPICAL ENOUGH For years, Kern River Surf Co has been accused of exaggerating Bakersfield’s tropical qualities. The palm trees, the inland surf breaks, the yacht clubs, the tiki resorts, the alligator boards and the legendary warm-water barrels beneath...
Kern River Surf Co: California, as We Remember It
Kern River Surf Co is not just another California clothing brand. We create shirts, hoodies, and other apparel, as well as art work, inspired by Bakersfield, Kern County, the Kern River, the oilfields, lost local businesses, and the wonderfully questionable history of...
Esquí Con Dido | The Forgotten Ski Resort of Escondido
The Forgotten Slopes of Escondido: A Mispronounced Legacy Long before it became a sleepy suburban enclave of strip malls and avocado groves, Escondido was poised to become the Aspen of Alta California. Or at least, that was the dream of Juan Gaspar de Dido, an...
Truxtun Lakes Yacht Club: Bakersfield’s Mostly Realish Harbor of Pan Am Clippers, Tiki Villages & Kern River Glory
Search for Truxtun Lake or Truxtun Lakes today and you will find plenty of sensible information. Fishing reports. Walking trails. Urban lake notes. The usual “yes, there is water here sometimes” commentary. Truxtun Lake is commonly described as a 28-acre urban lake...
The Glasnost Skate Exchange
The Glasnost Skate Exchange Moscow ↔ Bakersfield, 1991 When concrete diplomacy rolled on four wheels In the final, uncertain years of the Cold War, when borders were softening but nerves were still tight, few people imagined that a skateboard would become an...
May 5, 1987. Who remembers?
Is This the Origin of the Truxtun Lakes Monster? Every legend has a photograph. This one surfaced quietly—an old, grainy black-and-white image showing a massive, armor-plated fish hauled onto a dock at Greater Truxtun Lake. Men stand around it in stunned silence. No...
A Storied Harbor: The History of the Truxtun Lakes Yacht Club
The Story Perched elegantly above the sun-struck waters of Greater Truxtun Lake, its long pier stretching confidently into the blue, the Truxtun Lakes Yacht Club (TLYC) stands as a monument to a vision of Central Valley nautical life that is both improbable...
Pan-Am, Pismo and the Kern River: A Non-Stop Bakersfield Legend
There was a time—maybe real, maybe just whispered about over campfires and canal banks—when the world's most glamorous airline, Pan Am, charted a course not just to Havana or Honolulu, but non-stop to Bakersfield and Pismo Beach. This was the age of jet-set optimism,...
The Forgotten Voyage: Rolf Thiegurdsen and the Coconut Raft to Kernville
By C. M. Halloran, Pacific Ethnohistory Quarterly, Spring 1979 In the spring of 1950, amid Cold War tension and California’s golden postwar optimism, a little-known Norwegian ethnographer named Rolf Thiegurdsen launched one of the most bizarre and forgotten...
Not the Devil: Old Sparky
Old Sparky: The Devilish Summer Spirit of Kern County Skate Culture There’s a certain time of year in the south end of the San Joaquin Valley when the sun turns the asphalt into a griddle, the air stands completely still, and even the shade feels like it’s given up....