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Tonya Papanikolas reporting If you've ever had a favorite pair of shoes you wore out, you may have visited a shoe repair shop to save them, but these shops are becoming a lot harder to find.
The workshop of a shoe repairman is full of constant activity. The work is grueling and takes a lot of training to grasp.
Michael Gustofson, the owner of Michael's Shoe Repair, said, "It took me probably about three years to master everything."
That's part of the reason shoe shop owners say business is taking some heavy hits. "A lot of the guys are retiring out of it," Gustofson says. "And there's no new blood coming in, no one's learning the trade to open shops."
Also, as the cost of rent goes up, shops can't raise prices much. Ben Rishton, Midvalley Shoe Repair owner, says, "You get so that you can go buy a new pair for the same price as what it costs to have them fixed."
Nationally, the number of shoe and leather repair workers has dropped from more than 31,000 1988 to 23,000 ten years later, and now 16,000.
Utah is no different.
Customer Donna Bedell said, "It's hard to find people to do boot repair anymore. It's kind of a lost art."
And David Montano, Midvalley Shoe Repair assistant manager, said, "We've had probably about ten or 15 customers this year alone that said their shoe shops have went by the wayside."
Ken Baird came from Heber to get his shoes repaired. He said, "Even though it's a long drive, it's worth it." He says there aren't any shoe repair places near his home.
For many shoe repair shops, the only way to stay in business now is to branch out. For Midvalley Shoe Repair, that means selling biker leather. At Michael's Shoe Repair, custom-made orthotics have helped business.
One shop told us that because shoe repair is getting harder to find, it plans to start an online service that will let people mail their shoes in without leaving home.
