From Street Stand to Corner Store

Usually, a business starts like this: Find a space, and then fill it with merchandise. But Kevin Rosenberg — the owner of Gear To Go Outfitters, the newest storefront to grace Garfield Place — went from the inside out.

Two years ago, he decided to start his own outdoor equipment service. He launched a website, installed two shelves in the living room of his Park Slope apartment, and covered them in camping gear. Then he waited.

“I, like a lot of small business owners, had the field of dreams mentality, where if you build it, they will come,” Rosenberg, 37, said.

But no one came. So Rosenberg was forced to find a new strategy. Being a veteran, he was free to set up a street stand and sell his wares curbside. Two days before Christmas in 2009, he put some gear on a folding table, set up on the street, and — to his surprise — made $500. He soon became a fixture in the neighborhood, known to residents as that guy who sells backpacks and tents from a solar-powered point-of-sale device on Seventh Avenue and Garfield Place.

As his business picked up, Rosenberg began shopping around for a space. Now, thanks to a good deal from his landlord, Peter Muller of the neighboring Palma Chemist pharmacy, Rosenberg is now a permanent fixture at 217 Garfield Place.

In addition to renting, delivering and selling camping equipment, Rosenberg and his licensed guides lead day hikes and weekend trips on trails in the area. An avid cook, Rosenberg also plans gourmet menus for his hikes every season. His winter fare included a Moroccan fish tagine, double onion potato stew and nutty fudge cookies. For summer, Rosenberg will be serving tricolor rotini pasta with homemade pesto, sundried tomatoes, and freshly shaved Parmesan cheese. For dessert, he’ll offer “backcountry tiramisu,” named so because mascarpone doesn’t hold up well on hikes, and must be replaced with cheesecake pudding.

Rosenberg was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Long Island. He said his love for the outdoors started in 1991, when, ten days after he turned 18, he drove out to Arizona and started an army ROTC program at the University of Arizona in Tuscan.

“I’d never really had much experience in the outdoors and all the sudden, a couple of weeks after I turned 18, I’m in the Arizona desert, carrying a 75-pound backpack, an M-16, and wearing grease paint and sleeping out underneath the stars,” he said. “I loved it.”

Though Rosenberg is technically considered a combat veteran, he’s never actually  thrown a grenade or shot a gun in the battlefield.  However, while camping, Rosenberg has collected his fair share of war stories. He’s encountered snakes and bears and Gila monsters. He’s found himself in the beginnings of hypothermia and heat exhaustion. Once, while hiking through the Appalachian Trail, he caught a parasite that the hospital later treated by administering him three IVs in one hour.

Rosenberg understands his fellow New Yorkers might not have his same sense of adventure, but he wants to inspire people to enjoy nature any way he can.

“I think a lot of people here have an adventurous soul, they just don’t know where to direct it,” he said. “I’m trying to make it as easy as possible to get out of the city.”

Last weekend, as Rosenberg awaited customers in his new shop, a passerby popped her head into the door to look around.

“Do you have anything going on on Sunday?" she asked.

“Slide Mountain and the Catskills,” Rosenberg replied. “We also do backpacking trips.”

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “I’m not an outdoorsy person. I’m like, ‘I want to go to nature, where is that place?’”