After making its brick-and-mortar debut in Miami four years ago, YankeeKicks is ready to take on New York City.
YankeeKicks, the sneaker marketplace founded by notable collector Yaniv Bar in 2019, revealed its first New York flagship to a packed house that included media, celebrities and others on Wednesday night. The store, which was designed by Netherlands-based creative agency The Eyden Berg, consumes 5,104 square feet of space at 666 Broadway in the city’s bustling NoHo neighborhood.
“Miami is my hometown, but New York is like no other place. If you can do it in New York, you can do it everywhere. And if I’m coming to New York, I want to come in big time. This location shows we can bring big time to New York,” Bar, who who also serves as the CEO of YankeeKicks, told FN. “We want to refresh the sneaker industry with our kind of experience that we think sneaker stores in New York are missing. I love all the sneaker stores, but I bring a different experience to the industry. It’s more like a VIP experience.”
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Inside the New York store, YankeeKicks will stock a curated selection of verified authentic sneakers. The marketplace has its own consignment system, which will allow people to sell their premium sneakers, as well as a consignment room where shoes can be authenticated. Also, it includes a hidden VIP room for premium customer experience and a kiosk to help find the shoes consumers want.
Mayor Eric Adams was one of the first to see the store Wednesday night, and both Fat Joe and Offset — two of rap’s biggest stars who are also world renowned sneaker collectors — toured the store and ended the night performing their hits for attendees.
Sneaker legend Jeff Staple was also in attendance, and at the event, he launched an auction for a one-of-one “Reverse Panda” Nike SB Dunk sneaker. The look was done in collaboration with John Trottier, better known as Johnnyskicks, who also serves as creative director of YankeeKicks. The auction — which supports the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — is live on the YankeeKicks app and will end on Dec. 14 at 12 a.m. ET. Additionally, Staple showcased a new capsule of 25 sneakers.
“In 2018, we moved here from Miami for one year next to the Sloan Kettering hospital. Sloan Kettering hospital had my son to keep recovering from his cancer. My dream was I would come back one day to New York to do business and give something back to the community,” Bar said. “There’s a lot of families that need help, and I want to do the most we can do. We opened YankeeKicks Foundation, and all the events and collabs that we do will 100 percent go to Sloan Kettering to help kids with cancer and give families the help they need.”
The store will open its doors to the public on Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.
Looking ahead, Bar has plans to expand YankeeKicks into other countries and major cities globally, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, London, Canada and Japan.
“In 2024, we’re going to open the L.A. store, and then maybe the end of the year we’ll open Vegas. It depends on how we’re growing inventory,” Bar said. “We want to grow more in consignment inventory, and when we’re ready and have the inventory we’ll go into Vegas and then we’ll keep going.”
He continued, “I want to have around eight to 10 prime locations, and then I want to expand to sneaker stores in the malls. I will start with all my flagships, and once the flagships are open, then we’re going to open smaller stores in malls that have traffic.”
