Visits: 22
A sandwich board outside the door of the Santa Monica shop reads, “Support a Dork-Owned Business.” A vibrant sign reading “QDC” with an outline of a suited man in equally psychedelic colors welcomes you into a store bursting at the seams with vintage gear. Circular racks of sports memorabilia and old band tees crowd the room, while ball caps pour out of cabinets. One section highlights old Seinfeld gear, while another is dedicated to decades-old MLB All-Star game merch. A hamster named Pippen (after Scottie) snoozes in a cage atop one of the shelves. Near the checkout counter is Buscemi, a small dog who shares their namesake’s bulging eyes. Manning the store is a familiar face: Scott Rogowsky, best known as the Quiz Daddy. He earned that nickname, of course, during his firecracker run as the host of HQ Trivia, the phone-based trivia game that made Rogowsky a star overnight. He turned his quiz hosting experience into a job hosting a baseball show, only for that to dry up when the pandemic wrecked the 2020 baseball season. Now, he’s selling “quality vintage gear,” his signage promises, out of his own shop.
Talking to Rogowsky about his shop—Quiz Daddy’s Closet—it begins to feel like hosting HQ was merely a detour on the way to his true destiny: opening a vintage store. Nearly all of the shop’s inventory comes from Rogowsky’s personal collection, which he started in high school and had been storing for years in his parents’ basement. And while Rogowsky’s forays into selling vintage clothing dates as far back as 2003, hawking old gear became a more-than-viable career path just as his star was growing on HQ. Now, instead of dysfunctional trivia apps and pandemic-casualty hosting gigs, Rogowsky is finally dealing with some more fun problems to solve: “I have too much stuff here. It’s overwhelming but I just can’t stop getting more. I’m obsessed.”
Where’s all this coming from?
I have some people online that I deal with. I guess they’re what you would call pickers. They do what I used to do, which is go around and pick this stuff myself. But now that I’m here, it’s much harder. And also in L.A., everything’s picked over. Everybody’s doing this these days. I had a kid come in here, he’s talking about the shirts as if he’s a diamond dealer. I’m not one of those people. I just see a shirt and I like it.
What’s the most expensive thing you’ve sold so far?
I sold a Bob Marley tee for $420 [Ed. note: Nice]. And I sold an Aaliyah tee for $450.
So, what have the last few years been like for you?
The last few years have been a little weird for all of us, right? Going back to leaving HQ in 2019, getting the job at DAZN MLB Network, which was super fun. 2019 signed on for two more years. I thought I was gonna be doing that. I was making good money living in New York, had great coworkers there. And then, of course, the pandemic came along and the baseball season practically got canceled and the show got put on hold and then canceled.
I was dating someone who was basically living in LA before the pandemic. She moved back to LA and I was like, “You know what? I’m going to try this thing.” I moved out, and had a job opportunity out here as well. The relationship and the job both dried up within two months and then I was kind of just living at this incredible complex in Marina Del Rey feeling like I was retired. Hanging at the tennis courts lounging all day. I kind of miss it a little bit. Now, I’m completely overextended again.
How did you end up opening the store?
I had been doing Quiz Daddy Closet on Instagram since 2019. I had done some pop-ups in New York when I was there and I really enjoyed that experience. I was like, “Let me do what I’ve always wanted to do and open the store.” I have so much stuff. There were a lot of openings on Main Street here in Santa Monica and I got a good deal at this place to try it for three months.
It’s just been like a super success. I’ve extended [the lease] twice since then. And now I’m at the point where I’m like, “Shit, do I just kind of get in and get out and feel like I scratched that itch?” Initially, my plan was to sell what I have and be done with it. And then of course I just kept buying more stuff, so I didn’t really stick to that plan. It’s really done so well, I’m gonna open a second location now.
For real?
Yeah, starting in November and December. I like short term things, so I’m starting this little pop-up. It’s gonna be hats only. Because I have so many hats. I mean, they’re all on the racks, they’re all up on the walls. Hundreds of hats.
They’re overflowing out of the cabinet behind you.
Overflowing with hats, and they’re all like an amazing deadstock condition. There’s no vintage hat store and I think that hats are like the new sneakers. Some of these hats are selling for thousands of dollars.
The new store is all hats, all $2,000.
All I’ve ever wanted to do is do a store where it’s called NFS: not for sale. There are no price tags and people come and ask, “How much is this?” “It’s not for sale.” It’s the anti-store.
I mean, I do sell a lot of hats. It’s just kind of trying out different concepts to see if the hat store could work. I also want to do a sports-only store. I think that if I do that I can really go deep and have every team covered and have different sizes for different jerseys and just go crazy with it. I wish I could open like five stores and just try different things with each one.
How did you originally get into thrifting?
High school, man. Everybody else was brainwashed by Abercrombie and Fitch and American Eagle, and that was the heyday of those brands in the late ‘90s, early 2000s. This is right when the concept of cool becomes apparent to you as you’re hitting puberty and moving into high school. I remember going to the stores [at the mall] and I hated it. I hated shopping at Abercrombie. I hated the fact that it was just stacks of 50 of the same shirt. Everybody was getting the same shirt, was getting the same pants, and we’re all looking like clones.
I decided I’m never shopping at the mall again. I started going to thrift stores where I live. There was one down the hill from my school in the Bronx, and my buddy and I would go during free periods. The other thing was, I was getting shirts for $2 , $1. They’re charging $40 at Abercrombie. I never understood that, either: why is this shirt so much money? You’re paying for the designer name and all that bullshit.
I just bought stuff for me, initially. And then I would find things on the racks that were so cool, but didn’t fit me. If I found a cool thing, I bought it. I can’t leave it there for $1. I did have the idea of selling stuff early on. I made a website in 2003 to sell vintage clothing. It was way too early to be online selling stuff. I think I sold one shirt.
Did you really just have all this lying around? There’s a huge amount of stuff in the store.
I had, like, 14 huge, 140-gallon boxes in my parents’ basement. They were sitting there for 15 or 20 years. I’m still buying things here and now. So not everything in the store is stuff from back then, but a lot of it is.
How do you like being a shop owner and interacting with customers?
You definitely experience the strange side of humanity. But most people are fine, and I’ve made a lot of good friends here. I was out at a concert last night with a girl I met here a few months ago. I’ve met a guy who played Major League Baseball. We’re gonna throw the ball later this afternoon. I met some people through the shop who fill in for me, it’s cool.
Wait, you’re going to have a catch with an MLB player?
His name’s Tim Melville. Pitched for four seasons, as recently as 2019. He went to Taiwan for two years to pitch over there. Now, he’s kind of rehabbing his arm and trying to make a comeback. He needs a throwing buddy because he’s trying to rehab his arm. He’s great. I met his wife. They watch my dog.
Unbelievable.
The store has pretty much made my social life here. I had friends before, don’t get me wrong, but I was sitting around a lot at my apartment. I was hanging out with my friends from elementary school, nursery school who moved out here. But I have a whole new friend base now.
How many people are coming in to talk to you about HQ?
I’d say on average at least one one a day. They’ll say, “I won five bucks from you.” Or, “Hey, what happened with that?” But then a lot of people are like, “Oh, what do I know you from? I feel like I’ve met you before.”
Are you happy that these people are associating you and the store with it? Or are you ready to move on?
My biggest regret is I didn’t start [the Quiz Daddy’s Closet Instagram] during HQ. I could have had 100,000 followers. I could be making millions a year if I had this going back then.
Now, I don’t know. Maybe that’s just a name that I’ll always have and it’s fine. I’m certainly perpetuating it. In the context of selling clothes, the name doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. But I’m not done with the quizzing yet. So, hopefully I’ll have an outlet to reclaim that moniker for its original intended purpose.
Yeah, there are definitely some similarities between quizzing and thrifting.
It’s definitely a nerdy thing to obsess over the tags, and there’s an OCD element to it. I’m just such a collector at heart, so I can’t stop buying. I’m opening packages right now.
Your collection goes way beyond the T-shirts. Don’t you have baseball cards and lunchboxes…
Stamps, coins, fossils, and comic books. I’ve concentrated my collection as an adult but as a kid it was everything: paper money, stamps, Wheaties boxes, which did not pan out. I had some Beanie Babies in the mix. I would collect anything. Campbell’s Soup cans would come out with Wayne Gretzky on it. I had a Coca-Cola can collection. Anything with very limited variations and regional variations. They would have a UNC or Duke Coca-Cola can available just when they won the championship down there. I was making road trips like, “I gotta get that.”
When M&Ms first came out with M&Ms Crispy they put “New” on the wrappers. I save that because they don’t have “New” on the wrapper anymore so this is a limited wrapper. I have the first issue of the Americone Dream where it says “New Flavor.
You still have it?
Yeah. Now it’s been probably five years since it came out so they’re not saying new flavor anymore. I save these things. I don’t know why! It’s got Stephen Colbert on it. So my personal collections are baseball and showbiz. So, comedian tees: any kind of the Jerry Lewis stuff, I have Merv Griffin tees, Dave Letterman stuff, Conan O’Brien shirts. Any kind of showbiz stuff and then minor league baseball. All the things that I just loved growing up
What is it about collecting that you love?
It’s OCD. My way of therapy, my way of coping with the insane world we live in. I think that’s what drives everybody who collects—just like nostalgia. It’s just a yearning for a simpler time, a better time. Really there is no good time and everything’s been awful forever. You just don’t know it as a kid. So it’s just trying to recapture that childhood feeling.
Can you show me your favorite things in the shop right now?
I put the heavy hitters on the wall here. This is a recent item, the Rosie O’Donnell tee. Who didn’t love the Rosie O’Donnell Show?
The Grinch tee, which is a $200 shirt. I can’t say I have any special relationship with that movie but it’s a very rare collectible shirt and people do love that movie.
This is one of the coolest Nike shirts, it has a well-known old Nike tag from the late ‘70s. It’s a great color, such a unique color. There’s such a collector’s market for Nike specifically. This is a Prince Minnesota Twins jersey that was a giveaway at the stadium.
I kind of also collect 9/11 tees, anything with the Twin Towers on it. So this 1984 New York Giants shirt with the Twin Towers, how incredible is that? I posted this and I said serious inquiries only and someone asked how much and I was like, actually, I don’t think I want to sell it.
Part of your NFS collection.
I’ve definitely done that before. Someone was about to buy this hat and I went, I actually don’t want to sell that, sorry, and I just took it from her.
What’s your number one item you’ll never sell, it’s your prized possession?
I can never sell this: it’s the HQ basketball jersey with Quiz Daddy [on the back]. It was made for me by a couple who invited me to their wedding. They were strangers who invited me when I was hosting HQ. I was like, “Okay, I’ll go, I love weddings.” I went and had a blast. They were so thrilled I showed up and then I get this in the mail a couple weeks later as a thank you gift. They got me a gift for going to their wedding, which is totally bizarre. I can’t say I’ve ever worn it but it’s a nice piece to have.
