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Outdoors Inc.: Memphis’ Toy Box For four decades, the outfitter has outfitted the adventure-minded.
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“The Mississippi River towns are comely, clean, well built, and pleasing to the eye, and cheering to the spirit. The Mississippi Valley is as reposeful as a dreamland, nothing worldly about it . . . nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.” — Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi With a prime spot on Mark Twain’s mighty river and an arm’s reach to the hills of the Ozarks and the Smoky Mountains, Memphians have an ever-growing number of opportunities to get their fill of climbing, cycling, camping, and boating within driving distance. Whether choosing to take a drive or stay closer to home, one store has led the way to equip the Bluff City for adventure since 1974. “We sell carbon-fiber kayaks, we sell titanium, carbon-fiber bicycles . . . for 41 years, we’ve been offering a really premium product, and Memphians have responded,” says Joe Royer, president and co-founder of Outdoors Inc. “I really think our best business trait is not underestimat-
ing the city and believing in the people.” A West Tennessee native, Royer graduated from the University of Memphis (then Memphis State) with a degree in civil engineering. When he left his New York engineering firm after a promotion to vice president in his
early twenties to go into outdoor recreation, his boss thought he was crazy. Outdoors Inc., though, has become an essential element of the Memphis recreation community. Today’s Outdoors Inc. was founded as “The Great Outdoors” when Royer and co-founder Lawrence Migliara, both avid canoe and kayak racers, combined their performance equipment stores. Over time, they added camping and climbing equipment, ski gear, bikes, and more. Today, customers at any of the company’s four locations — Midtown, East Memphis, Cordova, and Jackson, Tennessee — can seek high-quality equipment and information on nearly any outdoor sport, in addition to in-demand brands like Chaco, Patagonia, and Yeti. Learning from the expertise
offered by Outdoors Inc. employees is one of the best things about visiting the stores, says Midtown sales associate Eric Bleier. “All of us do have a lot of expertise in these areas, whether it be boating, cycling, rock climbing, backpacking, spelunking,” Bleier says. “We know what we’re talking about. We’ve been to Rocky Mountain National Park or Yellowstone; Yosemite.” Each of the three Memphis Outdoors Inc. locations offers a little of everything, plus its own unique niche. A rock climbing wall is part of the Cordova store, while the Midtown location holds extra storage for canoes and kayaks behind its Union Avenue building. In East Memphis, a full-service bike shop is part of the Poplar Avenue store, which also becomes the primary ski and snowboard location in the winter.
“SOME YEARS, IT’S EASIER TO MAKE THE U.S. OLYMPIC TEAM THAN TO WIN THE OUTDOORS INC. RACE. THAT’S HOW GOOD THE COMPETITION IS.” — JOE ROYER, PRESIDENT
More than 500 participants took part in the 2015 Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race.
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The canoes, bikes, and other equipment sold are used all over the world, from the Rockies to Mount Kilamanjaro. One of Royer’s biggest goals, though, is to help Memphians embrace the natural beauty right here in Shelby County. “We’ve got this beautiful oak forest we live in, we’ve got the Mississippi, we’ve got this gently rolling flatter terrain; it’s perfect for a bicycle,” Royer says. The cycling community in Memphis has known that for decades, but the expansion of
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY TERESA FAULK
AND CO-FOUNDER
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