GOAT USA, a homegrown Long Island brand founded by three childhood friends from Carle Place and East Williston, has opened its fifth store in Deer Park.
Dylan McLaughlin and Rich Alfaro, both from Carle Place, and T.J. Cristina, from East Williston, hosted a grand opening for their new storefront earlier this month. The store, located at Tanger Outlets, sells fashion wear such as athletic lifestyle apparel, jackets, long sleeves, polos, T-shirts, joggers, shorts, accessories and more.
Other GOAT USA store locations are in Roosevelt Field mall; Riverhead; Paramus, N.J; and King of Prussia, Pa., along with a wholesale presence in 36 states.
“This new location gives us an opportunity to split up Long Island into three sectors to allow our customer base from all over Long Island to reach a store pretty easily,” Alfaro said. “At our grand opening for Roosevelt Field, we had people that showed up from New Jersey and Suffolk County so we thought maybe another store on Long Island would work and that’s how we figured to open a store in Riverhead and at Tanger Outlets.”
McLaughlin and Alfaro met in middle school. When the entered high school, The Wheatley School and Carle Place combined football programs, which is where they both met T.J. Cristina. As freshmen in high school, they played junior varsity football together.
All three were friendly with each other, but it wasn’t until after graduation that they became much closer. They all got into SUNY Cortland without knowing that they would be at the same college until they saw each other on campus. McLaughlin and T.J. Cristina lived two doors next to each other. McLaughlin said every day from freshman year to sophomore year, they all hung out, and during junior and senior year, they lived in the same suite.
“We studied, we partied, we’d hang out, we’d play sports, we’d watch sports and a lot of it (GOAT USA) was rooted in sports,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said when they were graduating from college in 2015, the term “GOAT,” which stands for Greatest of All Time, was “more popular than ever before.” He said people would always refer to superstar athletes as “the GOAT.”
“It became this colloquial expression where you got a 100 on your test, you’re the GOAT, you give your friend a lift to the airport, you’re the GOAT,” McLaughlin said. “And we noticed that there were no clothing brands with the logo as a goat. All these clothing brands have an icon that is an animal and we were like, ‘wow, the best one remains’.”
McLaughlin said they were inspired by other brands to move forward with this business idea in 2016. They then created the brand’s mascot, Chuck the Goat.
“It wasn’t so much that I had a passion for fashion. I think the three of us had more of a good understanding of popular culture, and we heard this term so frequently that we thought if we put together a logo to embody the term ‘GOAT,’ we could put it on T-shirts and make a brand of it and it will sell,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said they built the business by attending live events and setting up pop-up shops. He said people from every neighborhood they traveled to understood the concept and were interested in the business. He said this verified that they were following their dreams.
“So when you’ve never been to Colorado or you keep going down to Maryland and you go to California or you go to Texas, and you find the same energy that is felt by people in these other towns and cities across the country that you do from people in East Williston and Carle Place, we were like ‘we have something where it’s not just people who are proud of us on a local level, but people across the nation recognize the brand concept,’” McLaughlin said.
Alfaro said some of the highlights since starting this business have been opening new stores. He said they did not have a grand opening for the first three store openings, but it was “amazing” to see the long lines at the recent grand openings.
“At the 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock opening, I think at the Riverhead opening, we had a line that was seven storefronts long of people that were just waiting to get in the store,” Alfaro said. “And for me, it kind of just put into perspective the work that we’ve done over the years and the impact that we actually have on people. So that was pretty special to see after all the years we put into building this.”
T.J. Cristina said seeing the company’s growth over the last couple of years has been one of the most exciting things he has experienced with the business.
Alfaro said they are eyeing two more storefronts within the next year. He said they will continue to develop their brand and familiarize people across the country with their products.
