The New Black History: Interview with Roger & Josefina Stevens of City Workshop

The New Black History: Interview with Roger & Josefina Stevens of City Workshop

We talked to the founders of City Workshop Men’s Supply Co. in New Jersey about taking the leap into starting your own business, their shared passion for heritage denim and apparel, and much more.

Matt DeSciora

Are you doing what you love? If not, perhaps Roger and Josefina Stevens can be of inspiration to you. The next guests we’re excited to feature as part of our New Black History series are a husband-and-wife team who left their careers in corporate America to open a menswear store called City Workshop Men’s Supply Co. in New Jersey. Their decision to take a leap of faith to pursue their dreams of being business owners is relatable to anyone who’s ever sought for something more meaningful in their lives.

“I had been working in corporate America for 20-plus years and I had gotten to a point where I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I wanted to do something different,” says Roger. “We ultimately decided on opening a clothing store because it was what made the most sense to us.”

At City Workshop, which was founded in West Orange, New Jersey in 2015 before relocating to Maplewood, NJ in 2019, heritage-style, Americana-inspired clothes, footwear, and accessories are what draws people in, but not necessarily the only thing that keeps them coming back. The community that Roger and Josefina have built around the shop is a testament to their preference for treating their customers as an extension of their family.

Their humility and sincerity makes them easy to be around. You should be able to get a pretty good sense of that after reading my interview with them below.

Your story is not only interesting, but inspirational. Can you both talk a little bit about your decision to leave your corporate careers to open a menswear store called City Workshop in New Jersey?

Roger Stevens: I had been working in corporate America for 20-plus years and I had gotten to a point where I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. I wanted to do something different. Josefina and I had been toying with the idea of starting a T-shirt line or maybe opening a restaurant or something like that. We wanted to do something we both could enjoy. We went to visit a restaurant to see what that would look like and it was like, “Man, I don’t want to do that!”

Josefina Stevens: Yeah, it was like, from 6am until midnight… Can you imagine? 2 o’clock in the morning, peeling potatoes, stuff like that?

I’m good.

Josefina: Me too!

Roger: We ultimately settled on opening a clothing store. We always enjoyed shopping, and thought we had a good eye for clothes. So that’s kind of how we landed on men’s clothing.

Josefina: Roger came to me with the proposition of opening a men’s store, with denim being the core part of the business. I love denim, so it made sense to me. But if Roger would have said, “Let’s open a store and sell suits!” I think it would have been a different story. It would have been, like, “I don’t think so!” Denim is a timeless item, and it just made sense to us.

Did you have any early challenges when you started City Workshop? If so, how did you overcome them?

Roger: There were definitely challenges. When we first started, when people would ask us how we started a small business, we would always answer by saying we already had savings. We knew we could take it to a certain point and keep funding it with our own capital. Besides that, once we got over that hurdle it was just trying to figure out how to run the store. We were starting from scratch. Sometimes when you don’t know how to do something, there’s a beauty in that.

Josefina: Definitely. We didn’t know a lot about [running] a retail store.

Roger: I knew that there was already an answer to everything we were going through, because it had already been done. In a sense, we were backing our way into it.

Josefina: We didn’t really need to reinvent the wheel. That’s one of Roger’s famous sayings, and it was true back then. We just needed to figure out who could help us and guide us. We spoke to a lot of different business owners who were very forthcoming with information, knowledge, advice, and positive feedback. That helped us believe that we were on the right path. There was not one business owner that we spoke to that said, “I don’t know why I did this, I hate this.” Not one.

I think another reason why City Workshop has been so successful is because of the community you’ve built around the store. Was creating this sense of community something that happened naturally or did you make an effort to make an inclusive space?

Roger: I mean, honestly, the way we approach the shop, we know it’s a business, but it’s also about asking ourselves, “How do I want to be treated when I go someplace?” So we just lead with customer service, and try to tell a story with the pieces we have in the store. It’s been natural for us, you know? It’s like, this is how you are supposed to treat people when they are spending their money with us. We don’t have any real sales pitches or anything like that. Our angle has always been, “I like these jeans, let me tell you why I like them.” We’re just being ourselves.

I want to switch gears and talk about the new women’s clothing store you recently opened called City W. To my knowledge, there aren’t very many clothing stores selling heritage-style clothing for women, especially Black- and Hispanic-owned clothing stores. You are most definitely a trailblazer in that regard. How did City W. come together and what are your goals for the shop?

Roger: People have been asking us ever since we opened the doors to City Workshop in 2015, “When are you going to do women’s clothing?”

Josefina: Yeah, people have wanted a shop where they can buy heritage-style, Americana-style clothing, but for women.

Roger: Exactly. So after hearing so many people asking us, I started thinking about, “OK, what does this style look like for women?” I don’t know, but I’m not really aware of any standalone store that sells women’s heritage clothing. There’s men’s stores that also have a small section of clothes for women, but there’s no standalone store that you can go to that just sells women’s Americana clothing.

Josefina: Right now we’re just starting with the heritage style. The men’s style is easy, but we’re working through our vision of City W. in real time. We’re still sorting things out, but we do know that women are loving the space. We’ll see where it goes. We’re excited, we just want people to take the ride with us with this new adventure.

Inside City W.

This one’s for the denimheads out there, because at its core, City Workshop is most definitely a destination for some of the best denim products in the world. What brands are you both checking for right now? Who is doing dope stuff that you think more people need to know about?

Josefina: That’s a hard one! We love all the brands we carry, how do you distinguish one from the other? We can’t pick one. Each brand has provided us something different. From giving us a chance when we didn’t even have a store yet.

Roger: Shout out Naked & Famous.

Josefina: We have a soft spot for Naked & Famous. They were one of the first brands that believed in us. KATO is our number one seller, people love that brand. We love Freenote, what they make, how they make it and style it. We love Red Wing, for its heritage and longevity. We can’t name them all, but that’s just a small sample.

Roger: We can’t say just one. We’re super appreciative of all the brands we carry.

Since this is Stadium Goods, I don’t think I could let you go without asking you at least one question about sneakers. What are some of your favorite shoes of all time?

Josefina: I’m going to answer this first question first because it’s going to be short and sweet. For me, I've always loved Pro Keds because that’s what I wanted in high school! I never actually owned a pair back then, but I’ve always loved them. We were thinking of bringing them into the shop as a retro thing. But, yeah, Pro Keds.

Roger: There’s a few different sneakers that I’ve loved over the years, but I’ll go with the adidas Superstar. I specifically remember when I got those: it was my 15th birthday and my uncle gave me a $50 dollar bill [to go buy new sneakers.] That was at the height of Run DMC in early ‘80s. I remember going to the store to buy them and they were $44.99.

Josefina: That was a long time ago, Matt!

Roger: I got my change back and was hyped to wear my Superstars. That was my first pair of sneakers, really. You know, everyone had Converse and Pro Keds growing up.

Josefina: Well, excuse me!

Roger: I’m just saying, that was when sneakers were starting to pop up all over the place. Adidas and Puma were the first sneakers you could see everywhere: on album covers, in pictures, outside, etc. And that’s probably more so for people that grew up in the New York City area. You know, I grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, which is a microcosm of New York, and that was like the shoe back then.

That era was also the beginning of sneaker culture, too.

Roger: Yup. We were sneakerheads back then and didn’t even know it. There was a time back then when I had 15 pairs of shoes and my mom was like, “What are you doing with your money? Why do you have so many pairs?”

Yeah, it’s like, “You only have two feet, why do you need 15 pairs of shoes?” I’ve heard that one before.

Josefina: Exactly.

Roger: It’s like, “I got these pants with a red stripe, now I need these Pumas.” That was always the thing, we tried to coordinate everything, and we always looked for the obscure colorways.

Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you what advice would you give to someone who is looking to start their own business? Are there any “dos” or “don’ts?

Josefina: Ask a lot of questions, but ask questions to the right people. I know that’s an objective statement, because who are the right people, right? But it’s people you trust, people that own businesses and have experience. Search for those people you trust and pick their brains and ask questions. And really, don’t let anyone that says, “You can’t do this” to define what you can and can’t do. Don’t listen to those people, they aren’t helping you.

Roger: I’m a calm, cool and collected person. So when someone tells me I can’t do something, that’s when I try to figure out, “OK, how can I do this?” And it’s not to be defiant, it’s more to be like, “Well, why not?” I try to find a way. That doesn’t necessarily mean it always works out, but in the case of City Workshop, it did.

We had a lot of help along the way. We were really reaching out to as many people as we could, and the people who helped us the most were the most forthcoming with information. They didn’t hold anything back or anything like that. I remember talking to this one guy who used to come into the store about the retail side of things. He suggested that we always add a new color every season, a new price point, and so on. There were so many things we learned from so many people.

Josefina: We had a lot of people helping us and looking out for us. And it’s important to say, we’re really at work 24/7. We’re always thinking about the business.

What’s next for City Workshop?

Josefina: Maybe a store in Williamsburg [Brooklyn.] Maybe a store in Beacon, New York. I love Beacon.

Roger: That’s something that we’ve actually been talking about.

Josefina: We’re not the type of people to never say never. We’re looking into producing our own T-shirts, doing a private label. We have a collaboration with Alden in the works.

Roger: Alden is right there, it’s just about putting the pieces together in the next few months. We have everything set up with the private label. So there’s a few things on our radar.

City Workshop is located at 104 Baker St. Maplewood, NJ. Check out City Workshop’s site HERE and follow on Instagram @cityworkshopmsc

Select photos by @svmz