Hampstead

First Look: Surf City Rocks Opens in Hampstead With Gem Mining Out Front

Rows of polished oval palm stones in many colors beside slabs of petrified wood on a white cloth

Eric Lander Topsail Guide Editor Published September 5, 2026

Surf City Rocks opened at 10am on Saturday, September 5, on US 17 in Hampstead. We spent the first morning there with a nine-year-old, worked a bucket through the mining trough out front, and came away with shark teeth, arrowheads, a fistful of gems and a geode still waiting for a hammer. Here is what you’ll find, and why it’s worth an hour of your weekend.

Fast Facts

What: Surf City Rocks, a rock, crystal, mineral and fossil store with an outdoor gem and treasure mining trough.
Where: located at 22270 US 17 in Hampstead, NC 28443. The name says Surf City. The address is Hampstead.
Opened: 10am Saturday, September 5, 2026, as a soft opening.
Hours: 10am-6pm, seven days a week.
Mining: buckets of screened material, worked through a water trough that runs across the front of the property. Buckets come in several sizes, and every one has a geode in it.
Good for: kids, rock hounds, birthday parties and small group outings. Shade and a bench at the trough.
Who runs it: family owned and operated, with several of them on the floor opening day.
Phone: (910) 760-0833.
Online: surfcityrocks.net, Facebook as Surf City Rocks, Instagram as @surfcityrocksnc.

Interior of Surf City Rocks on opening morning, with customers at a glass counter, open pine shelving, cowhides on an orange wall and tables of polished spheres in the foreground — The floor on opening morning, with the jewelry cases running down the far wall. (Topsail Guide)

The building reads small from US 17. It is not. Step inside and it opens up into a bright, wide room that keeps going, and every table in it is loaded. Crystals, fossils, jewelry, spheres, geodes, gifts, and a fair amount of stuff you will not see coming.

We went for the mining and stayed well past it.

Kids (and Adults) Will Love Treasure Mining

The mining trough runs the whole way across the front of the property, water moving down the length of it, with screens and little trowels set out along the rail.

A wooden gem mining sluice with running water and blue plastic sifting screens holding hand trowels, set up outside on a sunny morning — The mining trough stretches across the front of the property, with room for plenty of people to work it at once. (Topsail Guide)

A row of blue sifting screens with trowels lined up along the wooden sluice trough — Screens and trowels are set out down the rail, ready to go. (Topsail Guide)

You pay for your bucket at the register, then head out front and meet a family member who gets you set up. They hand you a bag for your finds and walk you through how it works, and then you are on your own clock. Nobody hurries you. They circle back through, ask how you are doing, and hand out pointers when you want them.

The method itself takes about thirty seconds to learn. Shovel a trowel of material into a screen – and await your treasures.

A child in a blue shirt scooping sand from a galvanized bucket with a hand trowel, a green crystal already visible in the material — A trowel comes out of a medium bucket with a piece of green fluorite already showing in it. (Topsail Guide)

Then you drop the screen into the water and rock it side to side. The sand goes cloudy, washes through the mesh, and a minute later your finds are just sitting there looking at you. It is a great moment, and it just keeps being one.

Hands holding a blue sifting screen in the running water of the sluice, sand washing away through the mesh — A minute of rocking clears the sand, and whatever is left is yours. (Topsail Guide)

Fossilized shark teeth, a stone arrowhead and a chunk of banded fossil material lined up on the wet wooden rail of the sluice — Just a few scoops in, sorted onto the rail. The whole bucket filled a bag. (Topsail Guide)

A rough citrine point, a piece of rose quartz and a black obsidian arrowhead on the sluice rail — Citrine, rose quartz and a knapped obsidian arrowhead, all from the same bucket. (Topsail Guide)

A long blue kyanite blade lying on the wet wood of the sluice rail — A blue kyanite blade, straight out of the screen. (Topsail Guide)

A hand holding a small green and purple fluorite crystal in sunlight beside the sluice — Green and purple fluorite, rinsed off and held up to the sun. (Topsail Guide)

One medium bucket gave us fossil shark teeth, arrowheads, fossilized clams and a pile of natural gems and stones, including a piece of fool’s gold that filled our nine-year-old’s hand.

You also get an identification card with the bucket, printed with sixteen of the usual suspects, from amethyst and citrine to pyrite and amazonite. It is a starting point rather than a full list, and plenty of what comes up in the screen is not on it. We’ve spent another half hour at home searching up various rocks on our new countertop collection.

A printed card reading What Did You Find, with sixteen photographed minerals and a check box beside each one — Every bucket comes with an identification card. (Topsail Guide)

Kids up and down the trough were thrilled with whatever they turned up, holding phone flashlights against their stones to watch the color come through.

And then there is the geode. Every bucket has one, and that is the one piece you do not open at the trough. You take it home, wrap it in a tea towel to soften the blow, and go at it with a hammer. A whole second set of wonder out of the same bucket, and the curiosity about it on the drive home is half the fun.

No two buckets run the same, which is the quiet genius of the whole setup. You simply cannot repeat a morning here. Whatever comes out of that screen is yours, nobody else has one quite like it, and the only way to find out what is in the next bucket is to come back for the experience again.

There Is a Lot More Here Than Rocks

Give yourself time to wander, because the shop floor rewards it and we are not going to spoil all of it.

The fossil tables are some of the most interesting in the building. Shark teeth still set in the stone they came out of, whole polished ammonites, mosasaur teeth, and entire fossilized clams.

A dark cloth table covered in fossil shark teeth embedded in pale stone matrix, with polished ammonites arranged beside them — Shark teeth still set in the stone they came out of, beside whole polished ammonites. (Topsail Guide)

A black display tray of mosasaur teeth beside a woven basket of fossilized clams from Madagascar — Mosasaur teeth beside a basket of fossilized clams from Madagascar. (Topsail Guide)

There is something here for everyone – from a kid spending their own pocket money to those after a serious piece to add to their collection.

A table covered in citrine clusters of varying sizes — Citrine clusters in every size. (Topsail Guide)

Dozens of amethyst cluster pieces arranged in rows on a pine table — Amethyst clusters. (Topsail Guide)

Polished slices of blue-green chrysocolla with malachite laid out on a pine table — Chrysocolla with malachite. (Topsail Guide)

Rows of four-inch banded onyx pyramids in green and brown on a pine table — Four-inch onyx pyramids. (Topsail Guide)

Large slabs of polished petrified wood from Indonesia laid flat on a white cloth table — Petrified wood slabs from Indonesia. (Topsail Guide)

Gemstone trees and orthoceras are on the shelves. Sage, soaps, incense… Racks of patchwork clothing. Cowhides on the wall. And, yes, even Louisiana farm-raised alligator heads.

Wall shelves lined with wire gemstone trees and polished orthoceras fossils above a table of patchwork vests and bags — Gemstone trees and polished orthoceras above the clothing table. (Topsail Guide)

Two preserved alligator heads with open jaws displayed on a pine shelf against an orange wall, with a card reading Louisiana Farm-Raised Gator Heads — Louisiana farm-raised alligator heads, with rabbit hides on the shelf beside them. (Topsail Guide)

A sign inside says the selection should be close to double what is on the floor now by spring, which is a lot, because what is on the floor now is already plenty to keep you busy.

A Great Spot for a Birthday Party or Small Group

Between the trough, the tables and the space to move around, this is an easy call for a birthday party or a small group outing, and the owners are clearly thinking the same way. A card at the register lists birthday parties, drum circles, homeschool events, workshops and classes, alongside sales and new-inventory news.

The email list is how you will hear about any of it as they transition from the soft opening.

It would be a great spot for a birthday party – so we’ll be keeping an eye on their Facebook page for details as they firm up.

A Family Behind the Counter

The rack card says family owned and operated, and you work that out for yourself in less than a minute in all the right ways.

Family members on the register, at the trough showing kids how to shake a screen, restocking tables and answering questions in between. Every one of them available the moment you had a question, and visibly invested in making sure people were enjoying themselves and coming away knowing something they did not walk in with.

This was almost certainly the busiest stretch of hours they have ever had, and not one of them acted like it. They were warm and eager to welcome every person who came through and openly grateful to all those who’d turned up this morning. It’s exactly the kind of thing our area needs more of.

If You Go

Surf City Rocks is located at 22270 US 17 in Hampstead, on the east side of the highway. Open 10am-6pm, seven days a week. The number on the card they hand you at the register is (910) 760-0833.

The mining area is outdoors but it is properly done: clean, well built, with shade and a bench to sit on. That mattered on a day the feels-like temperature was over 100-degrees. Give yourself longer than you planned and go dig something up!

Sources

Surf City Rocks rack card, collected in store September 5, 2026: establishes the phone number (910) 760-0833, the email address surfcityrocksnc@gmail.com, the Facebook and Instagram handles, the tagline “Gem Mining, Crystals, Fossils, Unique Finds”, and the line “Family owned and operated”.
In-store welcome sign, photographed September 5, 2026: establishes the soft opening framing, hours of 10am-6pm seven days a week, and the store’s statement that its selection should be close to double the current floor by spring.
Surf City Rocks – Home: the store’s own website, retrieved September 5, 2026. Confirms the address, the email address and hours of 10am-6pm seven days a week. The site lists a second phone number, (910) 289-5686, and still carries a “Coming Soon” line while describing itself as a work in progress.
Topsail Guide visited unannounced on the morning of September 5, 2026, paid for a mining bucket like everybody else, and this piece is the result.

Editorial NoteWe visited during the first two hours of the store’s soft opening and paid for our own mining bucket. Topsail Guide has no financial relationship with Surf City Rocks. Hours were accurate on September 5, 2026.

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