After more than “seven decades of sun and fun,” outfitting locals and visitors with classic Florida sportswear, The Beach Shop will close in July.

A landmark on Ocean Drive, half a block south of Sexton Plaza, the store was founded by Jackie Zorn in 1950, when the only way to get to Central Beach was by boat or via a dilapidated drawbridge. The beachside “had no shops, crude roadways, and ... The Driftwood Inn and Sunny Cottages were the only businesses on the barrier island,” according to store’s history page.

Zorn built a two-story building on the west side of Ocean Drive, where Very Fitting is now located, and debuted Jackie Zorn’s Beach Shop, “one of the original stores on the island that helped to establish the Ocean Drive shopping district into what it is today.”

Zorn sold the store to Rich and Marti Bireley in 1966, and the couple grew the brand into a regional staple. In 1977, they purchased Greene’s Sports and Specialties, located directly across Ocean Drive from Zorn’s original pioneering storefront. In 1993, they added a second floor to the Sports and Specialties building, which became the current landmark location of The Beach Shop.

In 2004, Rich suffered a fatal heart attack while working on a Habitat for Humanity home, doing what he loved, helping people.

In 2008, Rich and Marti’s second son, Martin, joined his mother at The Beach Shop after a career in retail, mainly with Parisian Stores, a 45-store division of Saks 5th Ave.

“Me and my brothers and sisters grew up in this store,” Martin Bireley told Vero Beach 32963 on a summer-like morning last week, as tourists and locals filled the sidewalks and shops along now bustling Ocean Drive.

“Michelle, Charlie, me, Gabrielle, Barbara and Chris – we lived in the store,” Bireley said. “Mom and Dad were always talking about it, and we were always unpacking boxes, putting on price tags, things like that. And we’ve been at it ever since.”

By the time his parents bought the store in 1966, the Ocean Drive commercial district had grown to fill most of the north-south stretch it occupies today, extending from Beachland Boulevard south to Flamevine.

Thinking back to the businesses that were on the island at that time, he recalled: “The Petite Shop was there. The Driftwood Inn, of course. The Ocean Grill and Corey’s Drug Store. The Holiday Inn was there. Where the Gifted Cook is now used to be the Post Office. Casey’s was there, and there was a Steil gas station next to Casey’s.”

Besides womenswear sales and slow summer seasons, Bireley remembers more dramatic events at the store, including the approach of Hurricane David in 1979.

“We lived west of town back then, and that was before cellphones. Dad decided to stay the night in the store to be sure everything was OK. That was back when people put masking tape on the windows when a hurricane was coming.

“Well, me and my friend, Billy MacWilliam, were at my house and Mom had been trying to reach Dad, but she couldn’t get through on the phone, so she said me and Billy should go see if he was all right. We were about 17 at the time.

“We got in the car and headed for the beach. The wind was blowing really hard, especially driving over the bridge. I was fighting the wind the whole time. I thought we were gonna go right over, but we finally made it to the store.

“When Dad saw us he said, ‘I’ve never been so happy to see two people in my life.’”

Generations of Vero Beach residents have been glad to see the Beach Shop each season as the decades have drifted by, and the Bireley’s have loved seeing their longtime customers return, year after year, along with a colorful, ever-changing cast of tourists.

So why did Bireley and his mother make the difficult decision to close the book now?

“Retail,” Bireley said, “is very different today.” 
The Beach Shop will close after a Grande Finale event on July 1. The store is open for business between now and then.