Redline Recreational Toys expands in McCall, east Boise

The Meridian-based Redline Recreational Toys is expanding, with new locations at Lucky Peak and in McCall.

The company in March bought the assets of a business called Outdoor Adventures on Warm Springs Avenue and held the lease on the Spring Shores Marina at Lucky Peak, and have hired a manager to run their new outpost in McCall, said Redline co-founder and president Dustin Weniger. Weniger said Redline is leasing both locations.

Redline is a “toy sharing” company in which members pay a monthly fee for credit that can be used to rent boats, recreational vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, and other outdoor equipment. Weniger said the monthly fee varies depending on the type of equipment and the customer’s goals.

Weniger and his co-worker at the time, Joe Holbrook, started the company in 2008, using their own savings to buy a boat, a camp trailer, some personal watercraft and snowmobiles, and a motorhome. The two had been working at the professional services company Cintas, but left to run the business full-time, and are still co-owners.

“We were in Park City and we passed this big, beautiful motorhome pulling a big, beautiful boat, and we said, ‘How does the average guy get access to that?’” Weniger said. “There’s a couple hundred thousand dollars rolling down the road. We thought, ‘There should be a business that does this.’”

Now Redline has 25 full-time employees in the peak seasons of summer and winter, and 15 in the low seasons. Redline now has a fleet of about 220 pieces of equipment.

It offers day rentals and a membership program that Weniger described as “a timeshare program for recreational equipment.”

In 2014, the company received $1 million from Epic Ventures to buy additional equipment and refinance existing equipment. Epic was founded by Zions Bank and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, with an office in Rexburg. Weniger said at that time that the company planned to grow and add out-of-state franchises. He said August 2 that growth in the Pacific Northwest and franchising are still part of the plan. They bought out Epic Ventures this year, he added.

“We definitely want to cover the Pacific Northwest, and we have plans to do that within the next couple of years,” he said.

In June, they also leased a log building on Highway 55 near McCall and hired a longtime acquaintance in the industry, Skyler Nokes, to run it. This summer, they entered the world of non-motorized sports by adding stand-up paddleboards and kayaks to their inventory.

Tourism is more than a $1 billion business in Idaho, accounting for an estimated 5 percent of the state’s GDP. Receipts from the state’s lodging tax have grown since the recession ended. Weniger, who started his business in the depths of the economic collapse a decade ago, said he sees recreational equipment rental as somewhat recession-proof. The company purchased much of its equipment from customers who were selling off their assets during the downturn, and Weniger said rentals are an appealing option when money is scarce.

During the recession, “Idahoans still wanted to recreate, they still wanted to get out, even though a lot of them could no longer afford their toys,” he said.

There are other companies that lease recreational equipment, as well as websites that enable private owners to lease out their motorhomes and other equipment. Weniger said most of his business comes from referrals, but international customers find him online. He noted two families from Sweden are touring the Pacific Northwest in a Redline RV now.

But “most of our customers are long-term customers,” he said. “We’ve signed them up for five years, and they’ve renewed their memberships. It just makes more sense than going out and buying this stuff.”