Fort Myers Gets First Women-Owned Skate Shop as Rotten Hearts Opens Doors

Fort Myers is welcoming a new skate shop that many locals already view as a long-missing home base for the city's skate community. Rotten Hearts Skate Shop has opened with a mission that extends beyond retail, offering a space where skaters, artists, and creatives can gather, collaborate, and help reinvigorate a scene that has lacked a dedicated hub for years.

Rotten Hearts Skate Shop is Fort Myers' first dedicated women-owned skate shop, founded by Cammi Laboa and Jessica Blair. The two founders bonded more than six years ago through roller derby and carried that shared sense of community into their business vision. From the beginning, the shop was designed to be a welcoming environment that reflects their personalities and creative roots.

"Our main goal is to get the community together. We plan on doing skate workshops. We're trying to connect with the skate park located in Cape Eagle. We plan to host watch parties here and possibly some pop-ups. Just really trying to have something for the community that hasn't been here for a long time," said Laboa and Blair.

The shop's aesthetic leans heavily into punk, grunge, and horror influences, intentionally moving away from a traditional Florida skate shop feel. "We kind of wanted it to be more us, which is horror, funky, weird. We just wanted to feel like, I don't know, like a genuine atmosphere that people would want just to be inside of," said Laboa and Blair.

Local skaters say the shop already feels like a space that could help revive Fort Myers' skate culture. "I walk in, and I'm like, oh, this place feels like home. I like this place. But it's awesome. I really do truly feel like this place will help kind of jumpstart the skate scene back again," said Anthony Morrison, a local skater.

Rotten Hearts Skate Shop also doubles as a platform for local artists, offering them a place to sell work without sacrificing most of their profits. "There's, you know, not always a ton of opportunities for artists, especially small artists, to get into stores like this without worrying about, you know, people taking most of your profit or whatever," said Rebekah Smith, a local artist.

Beyond selling skate gear, the owners aim to build opportunities for collaboration among skaters and artists, positioning Rotten Hearts Skate Shop as a creative anchor within Fort Myers' growing skate and art community.