Matador Surfboards
Matador Surfboards founder Richard Lisiewski was born in Camden, New Jersey during the spring of 1929. Growing up surrounded by a family hotel and bar business out of Riverside, he became well-acquainted with many patrons and later worked there. He developed a lifelong passion for the ocean after his family purchased a beach home in Beach Haven in the 1940s. Inspired by a hollow wood surfboard he saw in a Popular Mechanics magazine, Richard decided to build his own. With help from family and local bar patrons, he was able to obtain the materials needed to construct his first surfboard. Although his first surfboard performed well on the waves, it was tragically destroyed when it flew off his car and was smashed by a tractor-trailer on the way home. This didn’t stop Richard, he got started right away on another durable, 10' surfboard that still exists today on display at the New Jersey Surf Museum.
In the sixties, the Lisiewski family got out of the bar business leaving Richard without a job. He and his wife Pauline took a trip to clear their heads driving through California and into Mexico. While in California, he saw the surf craze first hand and a huge opportunity with the new foam boards. Realizing this fad would come east, Richard’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked in as he began positioning himself to become a board builder.
While in Mexico during his trip, Richard was captivated by the style, grace and bravery of the Matadors. He saw many similarities between a surfer on bigger waves and the way bullfighters stood, arched their backs and getting as close to the danger as they could, creating excitement and thrill. In Spring of 1961, he set up his factory in his hometown of Riverside with the name, Matador Surfboards. The factory was set up strategically next to the train tracks with the idea of getting supplies and shipping boards more efficiently.
As the business grew, Richard would take on Frank Collier as a partner in 1962 adding new skills and craftsmanship to the company. The boards were becoming more refined and orders were coming in. They were the first on the east coast to feature a full line of pop-outs and were producing wakeboards, skimboards, skateboards and build-your-own surfboard kits.
Matador would sell thousands of surfboards in the sixties, producing boards under different labels for many west coast companies as well as private labeling for shops in the north east. As the demand for better surfboards and competition grew, Richard embarked on a spy mission to California to work for other factories and bring back new skills to his shop. He eventually landed at the Greek Factory working for Bob Bolen who was a huge source of education and influence on his shaping. After a month, he took off from the Greek Factory without even taking his last paycheck to head home to use his news skills to finish orders that had stacked up. Over the next few years, Frank and Richard would continue to grow the company sharing their products at the first surf expos alongside several big name west coast companies and using a small school bus to deliver and rent boards out on the Jersey Shore.
Richard would adapt to many changes in the surf industry and at home. Frank Collier would go back to woodworking and the factory was either moved or shut down a couple times. He decided to take a more retail approach to surfing, opening Brant Beach Surf Shop in 1965. This shop grew steadily from 1966 to 1981 carrying many iconic surf brands and had a large local following. He also had a second one called Brigantine Surf Shop that opened in 1967 that was primarily run by his wife Pauline. The shop closed down after two seasons so she could focus on raising their first child Caroline while a second was on the way. On occasion, Richard would still build a 60s style board for anyone that asked but mostly focused on selling other brands of boards.
After a theater expansion that caused the closure of the Brant Beach Surf Shop and his children Caroline and Michael growing up, Richard bought a property in the family friendly area of Brighton Beach on Long Beach Island and opened Brighton Beach Surf Shop in 1982. This shop stayed true to the core of surfing featuring iconic brands and had a wide selection of boards for people to rent or buy. There was always someone working on boards at the shop as board building and repair had always been a part of the business. At one point Richard and his nephew Joey got into the surf wax business, jumping onto an emerging market with their own proprietary blend of wax shaped in the iconic Matador triangle shape. They called it Stick Wax and it was mostly popular locally featuring fragrances like banana and butterscotch. Skateboarding was exploding in popularity and Richard’s son Michael was heavily into the skate scene. The shop was selling equal amounts of surfboard and skateboard merch and Michael started learning the family business eventually leading to him running the surf shop. He also started the Matador Surfing School in 1988 that still operates today.
Richard was a driving force in bringing surf culture to the North East, and his story shows the deep roots surf history has in the New Jersey and New York areas during the 60s. The Matador brand is strong to this day having been revitalized by Michael in 1999. Richard was inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 2008, and then into the New Jersey Surf Hall of Fame in 2015. Richard quietly passed in January of 2019 and his passion for the ocean and surfing is carried on by his family to this day.
Information for this post was sourced from the Matador Surf Company website. You should check it out if you get a chance, it contains more detail and many really cool photos covering the decades of Matador Surfboards history. They have two shops currently in New Jersey, Matador Surf Shop in Manahawkin and Wave Hog Surf Shop in Ship Bottom. If you are in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by and check them out!
