2016: HOW IT STARTED?
It all started in 2016 with $10,000 and a very small location in Saint Charles, MO. Ryan and Rebecca sought to create a family focused sports store where any fan could come and grab something for their "Fan Cave" including exclusive custom tees.
The beginning had a lot of hurdles and we had to scratch and claw to get through the first year. Many people may not know this - but very early on we had an autograph signing that was so poorly attended it nearly cost us our business. It taught us a lot but we realized very early on that together we could accomplish anything. We made it through and we always look back at that moment knowing the lesson learned.
During this time, we started playing around with exclusive custom tees and had some big hits and serious duds - but overall it gave us a lot of insight int the apparel portion of our business.
Things go very interesting in 2017 when Joel Edmundson wore the Fan Cave Exclusive "Ryan Reaves Boogey Man" T-Shirt on a Blues post-game broadcast. Funny story - Ryan was sleeping on the couch when all of a sudden his phone was going nuts - buzzing with order emails. Rebecca quickly woke him up to ask "What is going on". That night we sold well over 300+ T-Shirts on our website. It was insane and put our brand on peoples mind. Joel, our personal favorite, graciously wore the same shirt again and, needless to say, we will never forget those nights and days after as it meant so much to our small business.
2019: ALEX PIETRANGELO BRINGS LORD STANLEY TO FAN CAVE!
During this time our love & passion for the St Louis Blues was fueled. We quickly decided to focus our business on the Blues and kept adding players to a stable of Exclusive Athletes.
Maybe the biggest one in our companies history - Ryan O'Reilly signs with Fan Cave after being traded by Buffalo to St Louis. We've had the fortunate opportunity to work with Ryan up until he moved on from the Blues. Amazing Man - Great Person - Played a pivotal role in our business.
2019 was an amazing year for everyone involved. It didn't start off that well and a lot of people questioned the fact we had (16) St Louis Blues players under Exclusive memorabilia deals. Fast forward to June 12th, 2019 - The St Louis Blues won their first ever Stanley Cup and SHIT GOT CRAZY!
Following the parade, we conducted over 25 autograph signings in under 14 days. Capping off all the festivities was Alex Pietrangelo bringing Lord Stanley to our previous Chesterfield location to share with fans. A true one-of-one experience
2022 - SOLE CAVE IS BORN
While building the amazing Fan Cave brand, Ryan had this wild idea of opening a sneaker store. Sneakers have always been something Ryan enjoyed and while on a trip to Washington D.C. to do an autograph signing with T.J. Oshie - we stopped at every sneaker store between St Louis and the East Coast. We knew we could build something special, now we just had to convince Rebecca. After a lot of internal discussion - Sole Cave was born and quickly grew to three retail stores in under 12 months. Sole Cave quickly became an overwhelming business with lots of growth in a very short period of time.
It was also during this time that our retail store in Chesterfield had to relocate to West County Mall. That was very "personal" as we had put a lot into our store in Chesterfield, only to have that taken away by a new general manager. It wasn't fun - but it had to be done.
2023 - CULTURE COLLISSION
On July 13, 2022, we made the decision to merge our Fan Cave business and our Sole Cave business and create a completely unique - completely different business model
Fan Cave in West County featured sneakers, hats, sports memorabilia, trading cards, apparel and accessories under one roof.
With early success from the new vision - Fan Cave opened a second retail location in Kirkwood, MO.
2024 - KIRKWOOD STORE PIVOTS TO TRADING CARDS
We opened the doors to the Kirkwood store location in October 2024. We learned a lot about that location and what became very clear was - these families wanted a locally owned card store. The passion for shoes and such had not been as much of a success as it was in West County - so we decided to pivot and create the ultimate Locally owned baseball card store.
2025 - MAJOR SALE / SINGLE STORE IN KIRKWOOD
Fan Cave was approached about selling off the sneaker portion of our brand, allowing us to keep the Fan Cave brand and all trading card and sports memorabilia. After a lot of thought - we felt it was best for us to take this opportunity to pivot and return to our "roots" and focus on what we enjoy: Trading Cards & Sports Memorabilia. Effective September 1st - we only have (1) retail store and that destination location is Kirkwood, MO. We couldn't be happier!
We appreciate all of you -- thank you for coming along for the journey!
OWNERS: RYAN & REBECCA HOUSTON
STAFF: JOEY, CODY, IAN
KIDS: ISABELLA & GIADA
PETS: RANDAL, WREN, AUTUMN & MITTENS
