A custom t-shirt printing company will be opening a retail store at 2244 Broadway, between 80th and 81st Streets, on Wednesday, December 18th. Big Frog offers “custom t-shirts & more”, and has leased space at 2244 Broadway, between 80th and 81st Streets. They’ve recently been posting photos of the build-out process on their Instagram page.

Big Frog is a franchise model business with locations all around the country. According to their website, they aim to have 300 retail locations in the United States by 2020.

The UWS franchise owners are Kerry Colley and Josh Drumm, who bought the franchise last December. They moved from Chelsea to the UWS in 2015 and wanted their business to serve the neighborhood, as they’ve grown to truly love the Upper West Side. Advertisement

The owners told us that customers will be able stop by the store and work with one of Big Frog’s designers to design and print a custom garment on site in a few minutes (T-shirt, hoodie, apron, etc). They’ll also have items for dogs and babies.

The company specializes in direct-to-garment (DTG) printing, which works exactly like a big inkjet printer for textiles. Unlike screen printing, you can have unlimited colors and photo-quality images, and there are no minimums for print jobs. They offer a quick turnaround time and can usually fulfill bulk orders within 24 hours.

Big Frog also plans to host events at their new space. As they’ll be right next door to Best Bottles, the two companies will be collaborating for “wine and design” evenings. In addition, Big Frog will be available to host private parties.

I for one think it’s pretty refreshing to hear about such an old-school type of business opening in the neighborhood. While it seems like this type of business might have trouble breaking even in such an expensive location, Big Frog’s corporate website seems to indicate that they offer a decent amount of support to their franchisees.

Big Frog is headquartered in Florida and was founded in 2008.

Learn more about Big Frog UWS here.

Mike is a native Upper West Sider. He's lived in the Lincoln Center area, Morningside Heights, and pretty much everywhere in between. You can frequently find him eating through the many great restaurants on the Upper West Side or awkwardly taking photos with his iPhone.   Following his success of turning iLovetheUpperWestSide.com into a household name, he decided to expand his digital empire by launching EastSideFeed.com.