Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 10, 1994 TAG: 9403100188
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"People want to be different, period," Burch says. "Whatever's different is what's popular."
Wilbourn and Burch opened The Underground in September. It is, in no particular order: a hangout for some of the hip youth in town, an art gallery of the unusual, a fashionable place to be seen and shop, an oddity on a high-traffic corner in downtown Roanoke.
And, oh, foremost, it's a clothing store, the like of which is nowhere else nearby.
"There's no other store like this in Roanoke," Wilbourn said.
Located at Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue, its dark exterior isn't exactly inviting. But nearby, more traditional businesses have taken notice.
"It's amusing - not amusing, it's interesting," said Marlene Samples, assistant manager of Fashion Sense next door.
"Their line is totally different from ours," which caters to 25- to 35-year-old working women, she said. "All kinds of things for all kinds of people," she figures.
The Underground is unusual - for Roanoke, at least.
"It's like big fishbowl," with passersby staring in, trying to decide what to make of the the guy with the multispiked mohawk or the one with his nose, ear and cheek pierced, Burch said.
Inside, it is not your average retail shop.
Adorning the walls are pinups of magazine models, graffiti and drawings. Necklaces dangle from a rafter. Six-foot-long hats hang from the walls.
And then there's the ceiling.
Burch credits 19-year-old Roanoke artist Ike Howell with a good bit of the store's drawing power. His eerie murals, dominated by florescent-orange hues, cover the ceiling. One is of Lon Chaney as "Phantom of the Opera"; others are of Houdini, James Dean and Einstein.
The store sells T-shirts, jackets with logos unprintable here, dresses that push the edge of propriety, Doctor Marten boots and jewelry.
"It takes the right person to wear our clothes," Burch said.
But both he and Wilbourn downplay a perception that only the weird and the wild shop at their store.
"I don't have anything satanic in here," Wilbourn said. All sorts of people, from 10-year-olds to septuagenarians, walk through, she said.
But it's on weekends, when they're open until midnight or later, that business booms. Teen-agers are out; bars are nearby; people are curious. The store once made a $300 sale at 2:30 a.m., Wilbourn said.
Selling shirts for $16 or Doc Martens for $100, "we make rent in a day," said Burch.
But it's not just strange hours or strange clothes that have kept the store in business.
Last April, the building's owner cut Burch a deal on rent in exchange for fixing up the place. "The place was pretty much a wreck," he said.
Burch worked long hours refurbishing, with the artist Howell alongside, and the landlord, Hong Ki Min: "He cut the rent in half - forever," Burch said.
But he has no plans to quit his day job in management at Howell's Motor Freight Inc. "Even if you do as good a job as you can for a year, it could all stop tomorrow," he said.
by CNB