The original and iconic Bimini in the Beaches sweatshirt returns with a blast from the past this month

By JESSICA SHACKLETON

The original Bimini in the Beaches sweatshirt from the popular Queen Street East clothing store of days gone by is making its return after more than 20 years.

Though the physical Bimini store isn’t coming back to the neighbourhood, the classic sweater will be available online for orders as of Nov. 18. Samples for sizing purposes will also be featured at this Saturday’s Artists and Artisans Christmas Market at Beaches Presbyterian Church on Glen Manor Drive.

Joshua Blodans is the oldest son of Bimini founders Marilee and Uldis. He was born about eight months after the store opened. He has a brother and a sister, four and nine years younger.

Blodans went to Williamson Road Public School in the Beach and remembers heading over to the Bimini store on Queen Street East after school while his parents worked.

“I didn’t know any different, I thought it was totally normal; that my parents owned the store and I would go hang out after school,” he said. “It was not a normal childhood growing up in a household of entrepreneurs who were busy trying to make their passion projects come true.”

Blodans said the iconic Bimini in the Beaches sweatshirts are still popular, even though the store itself has been gone for two decades.

“Bimini went away 20 years ago, but it’s always been a constant in our family. In all our photos, one of us is wearing a Bimini shirt. It’s forever, you can’t escape it,” said Blodans.

He said that when he made a social media post about bringing back the sweatshirts, he received numerous messages from people who still had their originals.

“There’s a staying power to them. At this point some of them would be 40 years old, and they’re still kicking around,” said Blodans. “So that’s something to be said about what my parents were making back then.”

Originally opened in 1978, the Bimini store was located at 2064 Queen St. E., between Lee and Hambly avenues. Marilee and Uldis named the store after Vancouver’s Bimini’s Tavern, where they first met in 1976. After getting married they moved back to Uldis’ hometown of Toronto and settled into the Beach.

“My mother decided to open a small retail shop, named after the dive bar where their lives together had first begun,” wrote Blodans in a social media post about the store’s history.

In 1988, Biminis was sold to Grafton-Fraser, a Canadian clothier, and 25 Bimini locations were opened across the country. Marilee and Uldis worked at Grafton-Fraser’s corporate offices for two years after that before opening and operating a restaurant for a few years.

Around the time they made the decision to leave the restaurant business, Grafton-Fraser was declaring bankruptcy and selling its assets.  “My parents decided, ‘Bimini was where we were happy, maybe we should never have sold.’ So what they ended up doing was buying back the flagship store,” said Blodans.

“All of the other locations besides Queen Street East were closed and one that was really killing it in Moncton, New Brunswick. My parents were running both stores from Toronto.”

While it owned the store, Grafton-Fraser had ended up using the Queen Street East location as a sort of discount store, he said.

“What Bimini was had changed. The energy changed, the vibe changed, the character changed, so as much as my parents always loved this location, Moncton was the one where it was happening,” said Blodans.

His parents closed the Toronto store, and the family moved to the Maritimes. Blodans went to high school in Charlottetown. From there, they franchised Bimini and a number of stores were opened in Atlantic Canada. That concept continued until 2005.

Most Beachers will remember Bimini in its first 10 years of operation, and many don’t know that it went out east for many more years of operation.

Blodans said he’s trying to recapture some of the magic his parents felt around the original shop in the Beach.

“With me wanting to bring this back, we’ll see what happens. I have no idea. I’m trying to recapture that magic my parents stumbled into back in the ’80s because there was something special about what they did,” he said.  

Growing up with entrepreneurs, it’s no surprise that after high school Blodans studied business at the University of Western Ontario, eventually becoming an accountant. Though he soon realized accounting wasn’t his true passion, it helped open doors and give him experience, he said. In 2004, he moved to Vancouver and eventually to Whistler.

He operated a leather shoe company with his former partner and honed his business skills. When that ended, he got in his car and drove back to Toronto.

“Despite the fact that I lived there for 20 years, it never felt like home; it felt like I was just visiting,” he said of British Columbia. “As soon as I got back, I felt this is where I’m meant to be.”

As he’s gotten older and spent time away, Blodans said he has realized the importance of being close to family. Over the years, Blodans and his siblings floated the idea of bringing back Bimini to the Beach.

“Of all the different versions of Bimini, it was the sweatshirt that people remember. These funky coloured sweatshirts from the ’80s and ’90s,” he said. “We thought we should do a small run for friends and family. Not bringing it back, we had our own lives, but once I didn’t have my own thing going and started sharing the story that was when I realized maybe there’s more to this.”

Blodans was going through old photos and knew he had to do more than a small batch of the sweatshirts since the Bimini magic meant so much to not only the family, but the community as well. He wanted his parents to look back fondly on Bimini.

“Even if I don’t sell a single sweatshirt, the fact that through my journey it’s giving them an opportunity to revisit their journey, and I feel really fortunate that I can even have a small part in bringing that back,” said Blodans.

Blodans took his father’s sweatshirt and had it replicated. The classic Bimini sweatshirt is garment-dyed, and the logo is stitched on. It is one thing done well, he said, and will be available in black and purple. The boxy, retro, oversized time capsule will be ready to order online on Nov. 18 and will be delivered by the end of the month.

While Blodans is behind the relaunch, the whole family has been part of it.

“My dream would be to bring back my parents’ brand, but I’m just seeing where it goes,” he said. “It’s all been worth it already, whatever comes next.”

To learn more about Bimini in the Beaches, please visit https://www.biminiinthebeaches.com/