Credit: Ameera Rasoul | Lantern Photographer
Tucked into the south campus area near Ohio State, 25 Dials is more than just a watch shop.?
David Kim, an Ohio State graduate and founder of 25 Dials, said the shop stemmed from a personal hobby of collecting watches, and has since grown into a space that brings together vintage timepieces, coffee and community.?
A 2020 graduate with a degree in fashion retail, Kim said the concept didn’t come to him overnight — his entrepreneurial journey began long before he opened the shop.?
“At the end of my college years, I was working alongside Nike to curate and develop Nike accounts within tennis here in Columbus,” Kim said.??
Kim’s role with Nike was to manage and create wholesale tennis accounts with Nike to build out stores with merchandise, but when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted that path, he said he found himself returning to a personal interest.?
“I was not really doing anything,” Kim said. “[I] left that job, and throughout college, one thing I kind of picked up was collecting watches.”
He said that hobby quickly evolved into a business.?
“I felt like I had enough knowledge and knew enough people to maybe take a stab at trying to flip these things,” Kim said. “So that’s kind of what I did. I started [25 Dials] in 2021.”?
Today, he said the shop specializes in sourcing and selling vintage watches.?
“What we essentially do is curate and sell vintage watches — anything from like, late ‘50s to early 2000s,” Kim said.??
Kim’s work extends beyond watches. He said he also helped launch a marketing agency, Fluff Studio.?
Kim said that his emphasis on consistent branding carries over into the shop’s newest addition, a café.?
“[It’s] our own iteration of what we believe a cafe would look like under our branding … like how I do with the watches,” Kim said. “Something that is very consistent with all the things that I do —? I like to think I have a very particular style.”??
Jerry Ta, Kim’s business partner and co-owner of Fluff Studio, said the café adds another layer of community.?
“The experience that I pretty much want the customers to have is just the sense of community,” Ta said.?
He said it became clear after opening that they had achieved that goal, as more customers began engaging with both the drinks and the watches.?
“Sseeing the influx of people coming in and wanting to try the drinks, and wanting to not only try the drinks but talk about the watches, was pretty eye-opening — we have something going on with the community,” Ta said.?
That attention to detail shows up even in the smallest elements of the café experience, Kim said, which includes making all of its syrups in-house.?
“Our reason behind that is just so we can control everything and we can take feedback and actually make adjustments,” Kim said.??
For Kim, he said the café is just one piece of a larger vision.?
“My goal in the future is, I envision a big warehouse where we have a café in there, we have a showroom for watches and we also are able to showcase cars that we have for sale,” Kim said.??
Kim said he noticed his customers tend to enjoy the same luxuries.
“There’s a very intentional reason of why we sell the things we sell,” Kim said. “I’ve noticed that the people that buy watches are also the same people that tend to enjoy classic cars, or they tend to enjoy a good cup of coffee.”??
He said that realization helped shape the multi-concept identity of 25 Dials.?
Kim, a Columbus native, said the location choice was intentional.?
“For me, this was more of a bigger motivation to do this … since I was a collector myself of vintage watches, I kind of knew how hard it was just to try on watches in Columbus, Ohio,” Kim said.?
Ta said their shared background also made the campus location an easy decision.?
“We both grew up in Columbus,” Ta said. “We both went to Ohio State, we both studied there, so it’s just a full circle moment and a no-brainer to have it on campus.”?
Ta said the physical space was intentionally designed to encourage connection among customers.?
“We set up and arranged the studio in a way that students, or anyone, can come in and lounge or study, or even have open conversations with new people that are coming in and out,” Ta said. “We just wanted to make the experience really open for everyone to enjoy and then pair it with a coffee.”?
