Padres boost business for Oceanside hat maker

OCEANSIDE (KGTV) — A beautiful hat-making business in Oceanside has gotten a lot more foot traffic lately, and the owner says its thanks to the Padres.

Austin Zito hand-crafted each of his hats from from start to finish, but his favorite part of the process is not the end result, it’s…

“…The people aspect. Every hat is made for somebody,” Zito said. “Even the ones on the rack- I’m imagining someone wearing these at some point.”

“Including the Padres players?”

“Including the Padres, that one was a surprise to me actually.”

That’s right, this niche talent got Zito in touch with the Padres. In July, they asked him to make hats for the players who qualified for the All Star Game.

“The Padres are really good about supporting local businesses which makes me really proud they selected me because I grew up here.”

Zito was up to bat and the pressure was on. He had a week to make five custom hats.

“I ended up coming in and working 18 hours a day with the doors locked. Focusing just on the padres hats.”

He filmed the whole intricate process and posted the final result on Instagram.

“It said ASG 2024 on the inside, I had their names, I hand cut all their jersey numbers out of brass and mounted it on the side.”

Even the Padres acknowledged that Zito knocked it out of the park. None other than Fernando Tatis Junior posted a video wearing his hat, and Zito says he’s gotten a huge boost in business since then.

“I would love the opportunity to keep making those. Id love to partner with the padres and see how we can make those available to everybody.”