A fixture at Ala Moana Center almost disappeared earlier this year — a locally owned surf and skate shop that's been tucked next to a delivery truck service tunnel on the bottom level of the mall for 42 years.

Sera's Surf & Shore isn't as high-profile as other surf and skate shops at the state's largest shopping center, but it's the oldest.

Sera's flirted with closing after its founder, Peggy Sera, and her family decided it was time to give up operating the business.

A former employee, however, agreed to buy the company and continue the store that Sera opened as an offshoot of another business she founded in 1951, Nuuanu Tailor.

The new owner, Chris Higa, had left Sera's four years ago to join the Honolulu Fire Department, but said he couldn't pass up the opportunity to take over the shop where he worked for two decades starting in 1985 as a part-timer while in high school.

"I put 20 years into that store, and I didn't want to see it disappear like other longtime local businesses," Higa said.

The acquisition, completed in February, extended the life of an old kama'aina company at a time when numerous others are shutting down or winding up in bankruptcy — such as Nick's Fishmarket, Haleiwa Supermarket, Hallmark Jewelers, Aloha Airlines, Hawaiian Telcom, Hilo Hattie, Compadres and Cisco's Cantina.

Sera, in her 80s, could not be reached for an interview.

Higa said he aims to continue what Sera built into a small, but edgy, company that today has a half-dozen employees and roughly $1 million in annual sales.

Sera started in business as a tailor on Nu'uanu Avenue, making clothes and alterations. In 1962, she opened a second Nuuanu Tailor store in Kaimuki. Sera made clothing from shirts to uniforms, and also carried ready-to-wear merchandise. One custom-made item, surf shorts, helped lead to the opening of Sera's at Ala Moana Center in 1967.

Custom silkies, now-vintage aloha shirts, also helped Sera's become an establishment in the local clothing industry, though suppliers and competitors said Sera had a keen eye for acquiring merchandise ahead of the trends.

"She just had that eye," said Keith Dias, a wholesaler in the local surf merchandise industry. "She just knew what was hot. She knew fashion. She had the pulse of the local market."

Stephen Tsukayama, co-founder of Hawaiian Island Creations, said Sera had a lot of respect in the local apparel industry, and would sometimes even share with him her view of what products might be hot or not. "She's an amazing lady," he said. "A good competitor."

Sera's for a time was more deeply involved in the surf scene, sponsoring professional surfers that included Mickey Nielsen and the late Ronnie Burns. The last surfer sponsored by Sera's was Jun Jo.

But Higa said bigger rivals including chains such as Pacific Sunwear and Macy's (formerly Liberty House) expanded with force into surf merchandise.

"Everybody is surf, surf, surf," he said.

Surf retailers at Ala Moana today include Blue Hawaii Surf, HIC, PacSun, Pipe Dreams Surf Co., Rip Curl and Town & Country.

Over the years, Sera's shifted away from a heavy focus on surf apparel to lesser-known makers of skate and street wear.

For about the past two decades, Sera's has focused on a niche of limited-run street wear by up-and-coming manufacturers, including local producers. Board shorts still have a place in the store, though.

Higa has been involved in much of the evolution at Sera's, having progressed from part-time sales work to merchandise buyer to store manager.

But four years ago, Higa, now 41, decided to leave the store after getting married, having the first of two children and getting into the fire department. He said he envisioned the county job would be a secure career for the next 20 years as opposed to the ups and downs of retail.

When the offer to buy Sera's came up, he said he wasn't sure about the timing in the midst of a global credit crisis and the state's worst recession since statehood.

"It was pretty much inevitable I would buy it," Higa said. "I did it my whole life, that's all I knew. But I was like, 'Ohhh, it's a pretty bad time right now.' "

He said he figured that with the fire department schedule — working 10 days a month — he could make running Sera's a supplement to his main job. So with help from Higa's sister, Denise, who still worked at Sera's, he bought the shop and took over the lease with mall owner General Growth Properties.

"I'm so grateful that he kept the name and kept it going," said Carol Yamamoto, an employee who has been with the company since 1971.