When I was little and my mom would take my sisters and me back-to-school shopping, we almost always got a new pair of shoes.
At the time, in the ‘90s, there were only a couple high-quality, sole-sporting locations east of the Shinnecock Canal — the Bass outlet that used to be in Amagansett Square, for one, and Gubbins. While the Bass outlet is long gone, Gubbins, a family-owned footwear and sporting goods store with locations in East Hampton and Southampton villages, is still going strong.
With sneakers at the heart of its ample line of athletic apparel and gear, Gubbins, named for the family of avid runners who’ve owned and operated their two East End mainstay locations for nearly four decades, is one of those rare examples of a mom-and-pop business that’s not only surviving here in the Hamptons but thriving — and as a community-centered hub to boot.
Founded in 1988 by Southampton residents Barbara and Justin Gubbins, the stores, dubbed the Perfect Fit (located at 54 Park Place in East Hampton) and Running Ahead (28 Hill Street in Southampton) have become synonymous with providing East Enders consistently affordable, high-quality running shoes and sporting wear on a year-round basis. Now, with the help of their son, Geary, a Sag Harbor resident and fellow running enthusiast who owns the Southampton business, the family of running retailers has not only been able to stand the test of time but stand out from the rest. They lead the charge in offering valuable and relevant sport-related items, along with expert customer service, for the people who live here.
Hitting her stride
With a talent for most things athletic — playing team sports during her years at Ward Melville High School in her hometown of Stony Brook and later, in college, where she continued to play her favorite, field hockey — Barbara discovered her love for running while serving as a bench warmer at James Madison University.
“I played field hockey and we were really good, like 18th in the nation, but I was not getting much [playing] time,” she says. “I’d get so frustrated because we’d go to a game and I wouldn’t get any time, so I’d go run. I did a turkey trot at Thanksgiving, and I ran really well.” Barbara’s innate abilities caught the attention of her university’s track coach. “He said, ‘You know, I think you should really try track,’ and it turned out I was really good at track, so that’s where it shifted over.”
A competitive runner both during and after she earned her nursing degree in the mid ‘80s from Stony Brook University, Barbara was a nationally ranked Olympic trials qualifier sponsored by Nike.
She was introduced to her husband by a mutual friend, not far from where she would make her permanent East End home, at the very first Shelter Island 10K back in 1980, which Justin happened to win.
Not only does Gubbins cater to adult runners, but students as well, as most employees are high school and college-aged individuals, with a strong interest in athletics. (Photos by Jeremy Garretson)
Justin, who’s originally from Bellport and a well-respected elite runner in his own right, ended up taking a teaching job at Southampton High School, bringing Barbara with him to settle on the East End. He later became a track coach, eventually guiding his son to a scholarship for track and field at Duke University.
“I was trying to qualify for the Olympic trials; my husband actually did two trials. We were young, we had the kids, but I was still going to races all over the country,” Barbara recalls. But working long hours at the local VA hospital was beginning to take a toll. “I was working, my husband was teaching,” she says. “He would come home at four in the afternoon and that’s when I would go to work. I realized I couldn’t do it. It was too much.”
In 1988, Barbara came across an opportunity to open a running apparel store inside half the space that housed Rotations, a longstanding bike shop on Windmill Lane in Southampton, on what she calls a “shoestring budget.” With her reputation as an athlete, the help and support of her husband, and her innate love and enthusiasm for the sport, she was able to do it.
“I probably had, like, 12 skews. A good day for us back then was if we did $300,” she says. “I think we did $1,000 one weekend and we thought, ‘Wow, this is great!’”
Running the Hamptons
As business continued to blossom over the years, the Gubbins family grew to become the go-to business for all things running related throughout the Hamptons, opening a second location at Park Place in East Hampton Village in 1989.
“In 2005, Nike, which was 75 to 80% of our business, approached us and said they would like to do a private partner venture,” Barbara says. Gubbins ended up opening two outposts for the famous footwear brand in East Hampton and Southampton, thus giving them access to all the top-line products. That partnership ended in 2014, which, as luck would have it, was around the same time Geary, an alumnus of Duke University and Tulane Law School, decided to come back to the East End to get into the family business.
“With my mom being such a big runner, and my father running marathons and coaching me, we’ve just always been so tied in with the running community,” Geary says. “I mean, my mom set up my crib in the store. I’ve been actively around this my whole life.”
At law school, Geary was deciding what to do with his future. “I came back in ’09, originally, after my undergrad to study for my LSAT, and that’s when I really started taking interest in the business,” Geary says. “I missed not being here with the business, but the thought of the business ending, oh yeah, it would have been really sad.”
It proved to be a good fit for Barbara and Justin, as their son, who took over day to day operations at the two locations, was not only able to relieve his parents from their decades-long hard work but able to keep the store, and the inventory that was in it, current.
“As I got older, my ability to buy relevant products maybe wasn’t the greatest,” Barbara says, “so having Geary around gave that younger perspective we needed.”
With that sentiment in mind, Geary continues to staff both stores with individuals as young as 14 who are interested in athletics, especially running.
Across two locations in Southampton and East Hampton, the Gubbins family has put their own personal touch on merchandise, honoring their East End home. (Photos by Jeremy Garretson)
“What’s special about the store is, even though we cater to the runners, it’s also the local schools and the students in them,” he says. “All these kids, they need their equipment, their cleats, their shoes. They learn about the shoes and the gear. They start working with us in high school and they come back in the summers, and when they finish, they continue to work for us. So that’s one of the things that truly makes this store special.”
While merchandise at Gubbins includes top-of-the-line footwear, athletic clothing and gear, there are also plenty of pieces that sport locally centric slogans showcasing East End pride. Clothing with “Southampton 1640” or “We Run the Hamptons” or simply “Gubbins” abound. Geary has also started to produce his own line of branded merchandise throughout both stores. His “Love East Hampton” hats, hoodies, sweatpants and T-shirts, boasting a small heart on the front containing either a simple “EH” (for East Hampton) or the hamlet’s zip code, are practically trademarks.
Geary also continues to push the message of the business’s long history, and his family’s deep love for the community they’ve been tied to for nearly 40 years.
Back in 2023, the East Hampton location suffered a freak accident when a broken water line flooded the basement stock room, resulting in the Gubbins family losing nearly all their inventory, including about 7,500 shoes. Whatever was salvageable was donated to Hamptons Community Outreach, a local nonprofit that helps impoverished people in the area, and distributed throughout the community to members in need.
Their resiliency, no doubt an attribute they’ve all gained from their respective running endeavors over the years, proved stronger than ever, and the family was able to rally and re-open the East Hampton location, much to the delight of their faithful customers and friends.
“We feel like it’s reciprocal,” says Barbara of her business and the community she lives in. “They love us and we love them, and we like [the] business. We like being here because it’s fun — it’s actually enjoyable.”
