Army Navy Stores Nearby - Clerk Rory Sweets Burks hangs a Gadsden flag from the rafters of the Army and Navy Surplus Store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. The shop has been in business since 1955 and offers a variety of gear and supplies for people living in the area and beyond. (All photos by Matt M. McKnight/)

Patagonia is an excellent and well-known outerwear supplier with an enthusiastic clientele on a global scale. But in Seattle, it might not even be the best outdoor store on its own block, 1st Avenue and Lenora Street. That award certainly belongs to his neighbor Federal Army & Navy Surplus who was in Belltown as nobody wanted to be found dead in Belltown, which has been the case on occasion.

Army Navy Stores Nearby

Army Navy Stores Nearby

As you might guess from the military mannequins in the Federal Army and Navy Surplus store windows, it's a great place to shop if you want to dress up as a soldier for Halloween. But it's primarily a place for simple clothing and accessories designed to withstand harsh elements. If you're getting a warning that a potentially serious disaster is about to happen tomorrow, this is where you should shop

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Employee Marshall Hendricks (left) discusses an order with co-owner Jack Schaloum at the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

Don't expect to find guns, ammo, and fishing tackle here; this isn't Warshal's, the defunct downtown sporting goods store that reminded Seattleans of their strong roots. (The not-so-bumpy 1000 Hotel was built in its place at 1st and Madison.) Paradoxically, Federal Army & Navy Surplus is a fairly quiet place. As the Vietnam War became a growing concern, the store's main customers were protesters, not soldiers.

"In the 1970s, at the height of America's dissatisfaction with the military, military attire was all the rage (among the protesters)," says Steve Hall, a member of the Friends of Historic Belltown. "It's an ironic way of using the military and not being militaristic."

Hall has been a Federal Army & Navy Surplus customer since he worked for the U.S. Navy in the 1980's. Forest Service worked. He went there every May to buy field supplies or a pair of Korean War wool pants, and continued to stop by regularly to see what surprises co-owner brothers Jack and Henry Schaloum might have in store.

The Connection Army

"Recently, they had all these snowshoes," Hall recalls. “They had a salesman who sold them samples and they sold to them. It's quite a contrast to Patagonia.”

In the surplus store you can buy a refueling device that looks like a rocket, various flavors of M.R.E (Meals, Ready to Eat) issued by the Department of Defense, a camouflage "ghillie suit" that looks like Chewbacca after a night out. Sleeping on sticks and leaves and Rite in the Rain journals filled with waterproof paper.

The son of Jack Schaloum, a collegiate golfer, finds the latest of these items, made in Tacoma and "defying Mother Nature since 1916," a particularly useful tool during rainy practice rounds.

Army Navy Stores Nearby

Jack and Henry's parents were Holocaust survivors who arrived in Seattle in 1951. Izak Schaloum ran a dry cleaning business near Warshal and eventually bought a sporting goods store across the street that dealt in military surplus. Jack says Izak "saw a niche" here and focused on surplus, building the company, which opened up to a point where it outgrew its original 1955 digs.

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A ghillie suit reminiscent of Chewbacca, seen at the front checkout of the Navy and Navy Surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

Sylvia Etter (center) and Ryan Denson (right) examine clothing items at the Federal Army & Navy's surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. "It's my first time here," says Etter. "They have a great mix of gear and other random stuff."

US Army and Navy pins behind the counter at the Federal Army and Navy Surplus Store in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle.

Visitors walk under a variety of flight suits along the aisles hanging from the rafters of the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

Joe's Army Navy Surplus

An old Serbian fireman's helmet, believed to be from the 1950s, at the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

The Schaloums bought the old brick building in which they now reside — a meatpacking factory and shoe parts factory in previous incarnations — and moved in in late 1979. Jack was a teenage storyteller back then. Sala, where Capitán and Coca-Cola would oddly lack that last ingredient.

"Especially in Belltown, people seem to have an exit strategy, and that involves selling it to a developer for $11.3 million," Hall says, describing a scenario that roughly applies to the recently closed Two Bells Tavern on Fourth Avenue. which will be replaced. through a residential tower. “Belltown has an ephemeral nature, so don't expect these iconic businesses to last forever. But what you want is for new ones to replace old ones when old ones go, for whatever reason.”

Army Navy Stores Nearby

For now, the Schaloum clan and their funky shop, the last of its kind within Seattle city limits, are going nowhere. Jack says he and his brother have no immediate plans to retire, explaining, "Retail is what keeps us going both physically and mentally."

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But their business model became more sophisticated with the advent of the internet. Where they previously looted much material in person at auctions held at local military bases, they now compete with bidders from around the world, and transactions are increasingly being conducted online. Even Amazon has dipped a toe into the surplus sector these days, Jack notes. And when Amazon makes a jump, it usually doesn't take long for that jump to become a dive.

"There's an old Yiddish proverb: 'Man plans and God laughs,'" says Schaloum, who has just returned from a week's hiking in Utah. "So we'll see what the future brings."

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Mike Seely is the former editor-in-chief of Seattle Weekly and the author of Seattle's Best Dive Bars: Drinking & Diving in the Emerald City. Follow him on Twitter @mdseely.

Army Navy Stores Nearby

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