It's a blazing hot summer Wednesday afternoon in Wilmington, and outside Scooter's Skating Center on Shipyard Boulevard, on the edge of the historic Sunset Park neighborhood, the parking lot is thick with cars.
Just inside, a couple of adults with eight or 10 kids in tow crowd the front window to pay, while on the smooth roller rink adults and kids zoom around on skates, roller blades and yes, even scooters, as the cool groove of Swae Lee and Post Malone's hit song "Sunflower" plays over the sound system.
Claw machines line one wall, there's a snack bar in the corner and the neon blacklight carpet pulses under the overhead lights while, at one table, a grandmother sits calmly reading her book.
Welcome to Scooter's, where similar scenes have played
out, albeit to slightly different soundtracks, for the past 67 years.
According to owner Scott "Scooter" Campbell, who bought the business in 1997 and will celebrate his 30th anniversary as owner in September of next year, Scooter's first opened its doors in 1959. (The No. 1 song that year? Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans.")
Originally known as Sunset Skating Center (Campbell changed the name when he bought it), it was built in 1959 by the Parmenter family, which still owns the truck lot next door. Campbell, 52, who started skating here as a kid and began working here at age 14 — and whose vocal timbre and cadences recall the comedian Dusty Slay — said he's always heard the family started the business "just so they could skate."
"I used to skate all the time," Campbell added, but it's been about a year since he laced up.
The business was purchased by the Carter family in 1961, and they owned it until Campbell bought it.
The rink still has a retro, throwback vibe — the rink itself is the original 1959 maple floor, sanded and refinished more than once — but Campbell has added modern touches like LED lights and video screens.
"You have to," he said. "The kids want to see something flashy, something new."
Even so, some lighting dates to the 1980s and still works, and a giant disco ball hangs from the ceiling, serving to turn the darkened room into a glittering, otherworldly array.
Since the first wheels hit the rink at Scooter's in 1959, at least three generations of skaters have rolled there. It's the last roller-skating rink left in Wilmington, although other rinks still exist nearby in Topsail Beach, Wallace and Jacksonville.
Rebecca McKenzie, 28, said she's been coming here since she was a little girl when her father, Bob McKenzie, who's been skating here since the early '60s, would bring her.
After working here part-time in high school and college, she's been managing Scooter's for the past four years, and her dad works part-time at the rink as well.
One of McKenzie's jobs is to serve as announcer, and at one point she hops out of our interview to jump on the mic and instruct the skaters to be careful because, for the next song and the next song only, everyone will be skating in the opposite (counterclockwise) direction.
Scooter's has "a little something for everyone," she said, including fun for the little kids and "the nostalgia factor" for adults.
Campbell said the rink's Thursday nights, which are for skaters age 18 and up, regularly draw more than 100 people.
Daytime hours are geared to ages 5 to 13, and Scooter's books multiple kids' birthday parties every week, Campbell said, in addition to private parties.
He's even hosted two weddings for couples who met at Scooter's.
"I love seeing the kids, the families," Campbell said. "I just want to keep doing it as long as I can."
John Staton is the arts and culture reporter for the StarNews. You can reach him at jstaton@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: This Wilmington skating rink has kept things rolling for 67 years
