Eight years is a really long time. Maybe not in the big scheme of things, but in our tiny little human lives, eight years is an eternity. Think about how much can change in eight years. Hell, look at how much just changed in one.

Our friends Ky and Rick Cao, brothers and co-founders of the beloved Philadelphia streetwear shop and hangout spot P’s and Q’s, know exactly how long eight years feels like — 800 in the streetwear universe. The roller coaster of retail can be extremely rewarding and defeating, and they’ve experienced all of that and everything in between, both weathering storms and basking in the bright rays of success. But that’s just the way it goes, and the lessons learned make for quite the story eight years down the road.

But Ky and Rick’s streetwear story began long before P’s and Q’s opened in 2012, when brands like Stüssy and Obey pulled the two young Philly kids into their world with distinct designs and the ability to stand out from their peers.

“For me, it goes back to 3rd grade in the early ‘90s, before streetwear even had a name,” Ky tells me over the phone from P’s and Q’s in Philly. “I didn’t know exactly what I was buying into but most of the kids in my school weren’t wearing it so I was all in. I just wanted to be different.”

The two brothers carried that sentiment with them all the way to 2008 when they were plotting on opening up their own store.

“Abakus Takeout opened in May of 2008, and our goal was to not step on any toes, keep it clean,” Rick said. “Philly is a small city and there were already a few other shops, and they already had certain brands in their stores. You could pretty much walk to every shop, we were all within a mile of each other. So, we wanted to make sure we weren’t carrying the exact same brands as everyone else.”

Rick and Ky started carrying The Hundreds in Abakus Takeout that first year they opened, and built a strong relationship with Scotty, who used to run sales for us. Once Scotty moved on to different endeavors, Ky and Rick’s relationship with The Hundreds co-founders Ben and Bobby blossomed. Maybe they related to Ky and Rick’s fake-it-til-you-make-it tradeshow story, one they knew very well.

“When we first went to the Magic tradeshow before we opened, we didn’t even have a location yet,” Ky said. “We just used some fake images from Google and told brands our website was under construction.”

The location the brothers ended up selecting was Chinatown, an area of Philly with virtually zero retail presence. At the time Abakus Takeout opened, their streetwear shop was certainly an outlier in the neighborhood.

“If you went there, there were no clothing shops at all, except maybe the Hello Kitty store with a few T-shirts,” Ky said. “We planted ourselves away from everyone else. Rick came up with the concept of making our store look and feel like a Chinese takeout spot. We even had fake roasted ducks and chickens in the window.”

Everything about Abakus Takeout was different, from the concept to the brands they stocked. And they were the first shop in Philly doing consignment.

“We even had a changing room in the back that looked like a meat locker,” Rick told me. “When I was living in New York, I’d see concept stores like Dave’s Quality Meats and wonder why we didn’t have anything like that in Philly. And People don’t realize it but the Chinese takeout spot is a staple in American culture. Every single city and town has one. There are more Chinese takeouts than McDonald’s in the United States.”

Abakus Takeout stayed open until 2013, about a year after Ky and Rick opened P’s and Q’s on South Street. Once P’s and Q’s was open for people to shop, Abakus became more of a clubhouse for Ky and Rick’s friends, creating an atmosphere that fostered more hanging out than checking out. The brothers tried using P’s and Q’s revenue to keep both boats afloat but eventually decided to shut their first store down and focus on their second.

P’s and Q’s had less of a physical concept than Abakus but more of a philosophical one. They wanted to represent the city of Philadelphia proudly. Ky and Rick dug through the city’s history, scouring for inspiration to build their new shop’s foundation on.

“We wanted to incorporate where we came from,” Ky explained. “We want it to be timeless. Ben Franklin’s letterpress was called Mind Your P’s and Q’s. It’s just another way to say “be on your shit” and stay on top of what you’re doing. Mind your manners and be the best at what you do. Please and thank you. All that. We thought P’s and Q’s was the perfect name for the new store. We’re located on South Street, and if you know South Street, it’s one of the rowdier streets in the city. It’s a street that never sleeps.”

“South Street has a long history with mom-and-pop stores,” Rick said. “There used to be a skate shop called Subzero that a lot of the kids went to. That place and a lot of other South Street shops from the ‘90s influenced P’s and Q’s greatly.”

While Chestnut and Walnut Streets house all the conglomerates and big-name retailers, it’s South Street that has all the character. Mostly independent shops line the eclectic street, making for a unique experience every time you pull up.

“South Street is so random,” Ky said. “It doesn’t make sense, but for some reason, it works because the owner of each shop is most likely going to be working when you walk in. It’s a big melting pot of different things, from junk food to organic food, cheap shoes to expensive shoes, music shops, tattoo spots, everything. We all mix well because we’re all from Philly.”

In March, South Street and the rest of the city and world beyond had to shut down, instantly bringing business to a screeching halt. A global pandemic compounded by a crushing economic disaster, it was more than most businesses could bear, and an overwhelming amount of them closed for good.

“The pandemic hit us pretty hard,” Ky said. “We learned a lot, though. We’ve always been focused on in-store only, so it was hard. Why would a customer buy The Hundreds from us online when they can have way more pieces to choose from on The Hundreds website? The shop was 95 percent of our business.”

Surviving this kind of upheaval took a miracle in most cases, but Ky and Rick banded together and got creative to ensure P’s and Q’s could come out on the other side.

They were sitting on a lot of inventory for their then-upcoming Summer collection, and now without the ability to sell it to their usual shop customers, they figured out a brilliant way to market it online and get the community involved. Ky and Rick asked their following on social media to tell them why they should be selected to model new P’s and Q’s pieces in a new lookbook and then sent gear to their favorite responses, asking them to shoot photos of themselves wearing it.

“The collection actually did pretty well,” Ky said. “Maybe not as well as we would have done in our store, but for what it was, it did amazing.”

When hate crimes toward Asians were on the rise after the COVID outbreak, P’s and Q’s made a shirt that said, “Fight the Virus, Not the People” and donated the proceeds back to Chinatown businesses who had been affected most.

Ky and Rick’s resilience and ability to adapt has allowed them to reach this 8th anniversary, and we couldn’t be more overjoyed for them. The P’s and Q’s team always takes care of us at The Hundreds whenever we’re in Philly and they’re a shining example of the kind of community we strive to build and inspire.

To celebrate this milestone, P’s and Q’s is releasing their N.O.T. Today collection, featuring collaborations with Nothin’ Special, Obey, and The Hundreds that all honor the great story Ky and Rick have written so far.

“We want P’s and Q’s to last forever but nothing is promised,” Ky explained. “People in streetwear are always like, ‘Oh, once you hit your 3-year, you’re good’ or ‘when you hit five years, you’re chilling.’ But it’s not like that. You’re always fighting because you never know what can happen, and that’s why we came up with this concept for N.O.T. Today.”

“Since day one back at Abakus Takeout, it’s always been about that one big project that’s going to help you make it,” Rick told me. “For us, it was an Abakus Takeout collaboration with The Hundreds. But we were never able to land it, so that’s why we wanted to incorporate Abakus into this 8-year anniversary design with The Hundreds. When you walk into a Chinese takeout spot and see the Zodiac, it shows you yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In this graphic, you see both of our histories and all of our store locations. They’re what made us, and it shows the hard work it took to get here.”