“He basically started out just hot pressing designs like souvenir shirts,” said Rachael Sandahl, Heilmann’s daughter. “He always said he wanted a store like a surf shop. And people thought he was just crazy wanting to open up a surf shop in New Braunfels because it's more of a river and lake environment.”
After expanding his inventory, Heilmann outgrew his downtown space and purchased the store's current location at 272 S. Union Avenue in 1984, Sandahl said.
The shop continued offering pressed T-shirts but grew to include swimsuit and surf brands like Billabong, Quicksilver and more.
In December of 2016, Heilmann was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Sandahl said, and she and her sister Renee Nalls made plans to continue the business. When Heilmann passed away in July of 2017, Sandahl and Nalls took over operations.
“His wish was he wanted me and Renee to continue his legacy because Ducky’s has been a staple that tourists have come to love and visit every time they come in,” Sandahl said. “To have that following of generation to generation of customers coming in is really neat.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, the team at Ducky’s hosted Facebook live videos to highlight their inventory, scheduled private in-person shopping and launched a website featuring a small selection of their merchandise to keep the business running, Sandahl said.
Sandahl does not plan to add the store’s entire inventory to the website as it is an exhaustive process to operate such an extensive website, she said.
Despite ongoing labor and material shortages that have affected businesses throughout the country, Sandahl said she is looking forward to continuing to serve the community that has supported Ducky’s for 45 years.
“We're just gonna roll with the punches and do what we can to make sure we provide what we need for our customers,” she said. “It's the community that keeps us wanting to keep on going because when people come in the store, we love hearing the stories and we love hearing people say that ‘Duckies is a place where we stop that every time we come into New Braunfels.’”
