Shoe repair stands tall in hard times

If the old saying “You don’t know a person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes” holds true, then shoe repairers know us all too well these days.

Trio Shoe Service in Buckhead stayed busy in the good times fixing the soles of Atlanta’s well-heeled. Doctors. Millionaires. Socialites. High rollers. They all brought their John Lobbs, Manolo Blahniks, Ferragamos and Jimmy Choos for tender loving care.

Now, the leather goods shop’s wealthy clientele are doing more sole-searching and rubbing elbows with construction workers and regular Joes.

“A lot of people have been cleaning out their closets and rebuilding their shoes and clothes to weather [the recession],” said Ryan Embry, a third-generation cobbler who manages the family business.

When you shell out $1,000 or more for a pair of custom-made, handcrafted Italian loafers, you look for ways to prolong the life of your investment.

In the good times, a $2,000 pair of John Lobbs was a kicky status symbol, something “they thought they were going to wear and just have fun with,” Embry said. Now, faced with sinking portfolios and more uncertainty, “They can’t afford another pair. So they bring them to us. It happens almost every single week.”

Along with the $2,000 shoes, Trio is seeing just as many $350 to $1,000 shoes now.

“There’s a much larger portion of the population that’s complaining about not having any money. They’re having to downsize. They’re refurbishing shoes because they can’t buy new ones,” he said.

Bennie’s Shoe Repair, which has three stores in the metro area, is fixing between 200 and 250 pairs of shoes a week. It used to be 150.

“We fix any kind of shoe, except horseshoes,” said a joking Louie Shemaria, one of the principals at Bennie’s, another family-owned business. The company replaces lots of heels, soles and front tips. It also sells men’s shoes, which is off 30 percent from 1999 —- a strong year for his shoe-selling business. Shoe repair has offset that drop.

“Shoe repair thrives more in recessions. It’s like putting siding over wood. It just preserves it,” said Jim McFarland, owner of McFarland’s Shoe Repair in Lakeland, Fla. He’s also a spokesman for the 7,000-member Shoe Service Institute of America.

McFarland said his business has picked up so much that “I can’t get my work done because I’m on the counter every few minutes.”

UP TO THEIR ANKLES IN CUSTOMERS

> Repair is up 20 percent to 45 percent nationally.

> Most shoe repairs: New York and Chicago, where people do a lot more walking.

> Busiest U.S. shoe repair shop: Leather Spa in New York City, which does about 500 shoes a day.

> Number of shoes an average shoe shop repairs in a week: about 200 pairs

> Number of shoes Bennie’s Shoe Repair in Atlanta repairs each week: 200 to 250 pairs

> Last time the shoe business was bad for Atlanta shoe shops: 1995 to 1997

Sources: Shoe Service Institute of America; Bennie’s.