New Western workwear store in Fresno revamps abandoned corner of downtown 

Rubio Ranchwear smells like leather work.

It’s part of the experience of the store, which opened on Fulton Street near the Highway 180 overpass in early May.

A full, Spanish-style horse saddle sits in the front window; the black leather straps and skirts are worked with intricate white-thread flower designs. There are also rows of hand-tooled boots and belts, imported from Mexico and laid out alongside the assorted cowboy hats, Western shirts, cattle rope and spurs.

A TV set up in the corner among the merchandise shows a running loop of the boot-making process, to help customers understand, smells aside, what sets Rubio Ranchwear apart.

“It’s all super hand made,” says Ramon Rubio, who opened the family-run store with his father.

“We just wanted to bring a little piece of where we come from, here.”

His father splits time between Fresno and a ranch in Tequila, a town in state of Jalisco, Mexico, and Rubio visits at least once a year.

“You’re purchasing a piece of Mexico — the thing and where it came from,” Rubio says.

The Rubios started with just 30 pairs of boots, which they imported from León, Guanajuato, Mexico. The city is considered the leather capital of the world and a manufacturing hub for boot retailers like Ariat and Cody James.

They sold the boots out of a tent they set up at weekend swap meets, and within two years had grown their sales (and inventory) to the point where they needed a box truck just to move things back and forth.

Eventually, they ditched the swap meets and started doing their retail and online sales directly from their home until that became too much to handle.

The store, small as it is (and it’s less than 300 square feet), allows the Rubios to expand the offerings.

So, along with the popular Mexican rodeo-style boots, there are steel-toed work and motorcycle boots.

The “botas de pescado” have leather that is manipulated to resemble large fish scales. Others are made to look like python skin.

Bosserro’s “estilo botines charros” are low cut and dressy, made for every day wear. They resemble Chelsea boots and are carried in multiple colors in both adult and child sizes.

But it’s not just boots.

Rubio saw a need for rope, blankets, saddles and other pieces of equipment used to work with horses. It’s not something that’s readily available at other Western wear stores. So, Rubio started working with the family’s contacts in Mexico to bring in those items as well.

“The horse tack is like eye candy for people,” Rubio says, of the colorful display on the store’s back wall.

New retail on Fulton Street

Rubio’s store is part of a recent movement of retail developments along the Fulton Avenue, south of the Tower District. See: Beyond Rooted, the cannabis dispensary slated to open soon at Belmont Avenue.

It is set up inside the former Athletic Designs building, which had been vacant until it was purchased in October.

Several other retailers are on the way, says manager Ken Cruz, whose family owns the building.

A Chicano lifestyle brand will occupy space directly next to Rubio’s. It began moving in on Monday.

Two others will be moving in soon, including Vintage Drip, which currently operates farther down on Fulton at the Mammoth Mall.

The rest of the building will be split between several band rehearsal spaces and a small concert and community events venue, which will be collectively known as Fulton Street Studios, Cruz says.

“Our goal is to make the area another Tower District kind of deal.”