“If you want to know what’s happening in this town, you don’t go to city hall. You go to Dave.” That’s how a local skater put it to me outside Fargo Skateboard Company on a Tuesday afternoon, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Dave Riopel has been running the shop on Main Avenue since the late 1990s, long before downtown Fargo became a destination for anyone but locals. The building is nothing fancy — glass storefront, a few decks mounted in the window, the kind of place you might walk past without slowing down if you didn’t know what was inside. But step past the door and you’re in a room that has absorbed twenty-five years of one person’s particular obsession with skateboarding and the people who do it.
Riopel grew up skating in Fargo when skating in Fargo meant empty parking lots and whatever you could make out of a piece of plywood. He opened the shop because there wasn’t one worth going to. That framing — filling a gap because nobody else would — still runs through how he talks about the place. He’s not trying to compete with online retailers and he’s not trying to become a chain. He’s trying to keep a shop that actual skaters find useful.
The inventory reflects that. There are decks from smaller brands you won’t find at the big box sporting goods store out on 13th. Trucks, wheels, bearings, grip tape, hardware — all the consumables you go through fast when you’re skating regularly. Riopel or one of the guys who works with him will build a complete board for you if that’s what you need, and they’ll talk through the setup honestly rather than pushing whatever has the highest margin. That kind of conversation — practical, specific, no upsell — is rarer than it sounds.
The shop also functions as an informal clearinghouse for what’s going on in the local scene. Who’s filming a part. Where the new spots are. When the indoor park has open sessions. Riopel has watched at least two full generations of Fargo skaters come through, some of them now bringing kids of their own. He knows most of them by name.
Prices are fair and in line with what you’d pay ordering online, without the wait or the guesswork about whether something will fit. A complete beginner setup runs somewhere in the $80–$120 range depending on components; individual decks are typically $50–$70. Riopel doesn’t make a hard sell on anything.
The shop keeps regular hours, Monday through Saturday, though calling ahead if you’re making a special trip isn’t a bad idea — it’s a small operation and hours can shift. Parking on Main Avenue is usually fine. The neighborhood around it has changed considerably since the shop opened, with more restaurants and foot traffic than there used to be, but the shop itself has stayed more or less the same.
That consistency is either the whole point or beside the point, depending on how you look at it. What Riopel has built isn’t a museum or a nostalgia project. It’s just a shop run by someone who has stayed committed to one thing for a long time. In a city that has seen a lot of businesses come and go, that’s worth something.
