The Noke Van Co co-owner and Platinum “Star of the Star City” winner reflects on resilience, rebuilding, and the Roanoke community that helped carry them forward
Justin vanBlaricom
Platinum Winner, Male “Star of the Star City” | Best of Roanoke 2026
Don’t miss our special podcast episode with Justin and Keri vanBlaricom on site at their Noke Van Co space! We talk about his platinum win, moving forward after the fire, and his love for the community he calls home.
For May/June cover star Justin vanBlaricom, being named a Platinum winner for Male “Star of the Star City” in The Roanoker’s Best of Roanoke readers’ poll is both meaningful and deeply personal.
“My wife and I are both native Roanokers and The Roanoker magazine has been around our whole lives,” he said. “It’s very humbling to even be nominated.”
The co-owner of Noke Van Co and Fishburn Perk returned to Roanoke with a clear intention: to invest in the community that has always felt like home.
“We moved back here because this has always been the place we call home,” he said. “We wanted to make an impact in our community, so we started Fishburn Perk and Noke Van Co about the same time.”
That impact has not come easily.
“It has been a hard road for both businesses, but we believe so much in what we are doing that we have been able to keep looking past the hard stuff and keep moving forward,” he said. “To be recognized for that is pretty special.”
That “hard road” took a dramatic turn on April 4, 2025, when a fire destroyed Noke Van Co’s 34,000-square-foot warehouse, 22 vehicles, and, as vanBlaricom described it, “really most everything I owned.”
“This year has certainly been one for the record books,” he said.
During the fire, one moment stood out. A close friend and customer, Matt Thompson of Fleet Feet, ran past barricades to be with him.
“He said to me that night, ‘Nobody got hurt and this is all just stuff and you’re gonna be okay,’” vanBlaricom said. “He was right—this wasn’t the worst-case scenario, and that gave me a lot of perspective on our circumstance.”
In the hours that followed, vanBlaricom gathered his team in front of what remained.
“I called a staff meeting in front of the ashes of our building and all of our employees came, and I dropped a bag of tools that I had in my truck and said, ‘This is what we have left, and this is where we start over. We still have each other and if you all will stay with us, this isn’t where our story ends,’” he said.
What followed was not just a rebuild, but a reset that tested him both professionally and personally.
“It definitely changed everything,” he said. “It has been really hard mentally and just trying to fight every week for survival.”
He is candid about the toll.
“I’m not going to lie, it went pretty dark, and I had to do some work on myself afterward,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep, I became hypervigilant to sirens and alarms, and checking cameras constantly.”
With encouragement from his wife, he sought help—a decision he said was necessary to keep moving forward.
“Through this journey, my team became family, and I convinced them to keep moving forward blindly believing that we are going to be okay,” he said.
At the same time, the business itself began to evolve.
“We also took the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and focus on the things we were doing right as a company and leaving behind the things we were doing wrong,” he said. “We spent a lot of time focusing on pricing and systems and processes to make sure that we are going to be around for a long time.”
A symbol of that mindset now lives with him permanently.
“My close friends one day gave my business partner Josh and I each a key chain with a buffalo nickel on it and a little piece of paper that explained that when there is a storm, the cow will run away from the danger and try to escape it, which normally results in it being in the storm longer,” he said. “But the buffalo will run right into the storm, and it passes faster by hitting it head-on.”
The message resonated, inspirating him to a tattoo—one shared with members of his roundtable group through the Virginia Council of CEOs.
“I wanted to get a tattoo of a buffalo and the story behind it. They were all in, and a few of us decided we would all get buffalo tattoos to signify hitting challenges head-on,” he said.
His tattoo carries additional meaning tied to the fire.
“I added a brand on the rear of my buffalo that says ‘9B1’ because that is the building number for our warehouse that was lost in the fire, and then a sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains that signifies a new beginning here in Roanoke,” he said.
That philosophy of facing challenges directly has guided both leadership decisions and daily operations.
“The mentality of the buffalo has kept me pushing for what is right for our employees and our customers and making sure they are all made whole with what they entrusted to us and are back living their adventure as soon as possible,” he said.
Part of that connection extends beyond the builds themselves. Through sharing the process and the people behind the work, Noke Van Co has created a following that reflects the community around it.
“Part of why we started Noke Van Co was that this area is such a beautiful part of the country, and we wanted to share it with other people,” he said. “Then, along the way of building this family, we realized how cool and fun and interesting what we do and the people that do it really are.”
That realization shaped how they tell their story.
“We decided to focus on showing people that in a way that they could really connect to the people here,” he said. “I think that has worked, and we have had tremendous support in the community and gotten to be a part of a lot of cool things in the area.”
That support became especially clear in the weeks following the fire.
“It is truly an amazing community that we have here in Roanoke,” he said. “The support from other small businesses and people has been unbelievable.”
He said the full scope of that support wasn’t immediately apparent.
“We had no idea the level of support in what we were doing until someone started a GoFundMe after the fire,” he said.
In those early days, the focus was simple.
“My only objective in the wake of the fire was to keep taking one step forward every day and make sure my team gets paid,” he said. “I knew this wasn’t the end, and I didn’t want to lose anyone that worked here.”
The community response helped make that possible.
“That first month when we had no direction and no revenue, the community stepped up for us and gave us the safety net needed to get our feet under us and keep moving forward,” he said.
Now, more than a year later, the work continues.
“We have started to dream again, which is the good news,” he said. “We have spent a lot of time figuring out how to make this business stay around for a long time, but we also are still working on insurance and all that comes with losing everything.”
Recovery has been slow.
“I think that process will be drawn out, and we are about 10% recovered financially after a year,” he said. “So every day is still a struggle but we’re not going anywhere.”
Looking ahead, the vision remains ambitious.
“Our vision is to have a dealership lot for campervans and be the hub for van life on the East Coast,” he said. “We have started developing our own products and launched a used parts marketplace as well.”
At the same time, vanBlaricom is clear about the realities behind the scenes—a contrast to what many may assume from the outside.
“I run into a lot of people that say, ‘So glad you rebounded so fast, and it’s so good to see you all doing so well,’” he said.
But the truth, he said, is more complicated.
“The reality is that we are still close to $2mm in the hole and are still struggling to do right by our customers by building vans where the money is tied up in insurance claims,” he said.
He described the current moment with a striking analogy:
“I’ve explained our current situation as if we were flat on our face a year ago and it might look like we are back and standing again, but the reality is that we are on our knees, fighting, praying, and hoping to stand up again but we still have a long road ahead of us,” he said.
Still, he remains confident in the outcome.
“We will survive and make it, but we’re not through the hard part yet,” he said. “We are so thankful for our community lifting us off our faces with their support.”
For vanBlaricom, that support, and the ability to keep moving forward, is what defines both the past year and the recognition he has received.
Learn more about Justin vanBlaricom, his team, and their hard work on custom van builds over at nokevanco.com.
Ready to meet all your 2026 Best of Roanoke winners? See the full list HERE.
