Longtime Avon Shoe Repair Moving Around Corner
By ED SALVAS
Ron Palmieri is busy packing up his Avon Shoe Repair Shop at 304 Main and preparing to move.
But the move, scheduled for about May 1, is literally just steps away from the Main Street location where he’s been for 18 years.
Palmieri is moving to a new, smaller store around the corner on Lincoln Avenue.
The new location is so new that Palmieri says he doesn’t even know the street address yet. But he says the phone number, 732-988-4700, will not change. The move is the third for Palmieri, who opened the original Avon Shoe repair at 622 Main St. Nine years later he moved to the current location and has been repairing shoes and handbags and selling shoe care products ever since.
“I sell things that make shoes last longer,” he says. But one big problem facing Palmieri is where he’ll put the literally hundreds of items he sells, from shoe laces to polish, and assorted foot care products and even some second hand shoes in the new, smaller store. The move is forcing Palmieri to downsize, from his current 800 square feet to 264 square feet in the new location.
Palmieri is a third generation shoe repairman, having learned the business by helping his father in their Newark shoe repair shop. “I was the oldest, so I had to help my father in the business,” he says. The family moved to Lakewood in 1961 and his father set up shop there. Palmieri graduated from what was then Monmouth College with a degree in Business Administration in 1972 and continued working with his father until he opened his own business in Avon. He runs the shop himself, with part time help from his wife Jo, but there won’t be a fourth generation Palmieri in the business. His son is a skilled auto mechanic who works for Gold Coast Cadillac/Hummer in Oakhurst.
“I stay in business because I get customers from all over,” Palmieri says, noting that people who have moved away from the area often send him shoes by UPS for repair. He recalls one customer who sent a blank check with his shoes, trusting Palmieri not to overcharge him. But Palmieri wonders how long he can stay in business, given the changes in shoes and shoe repair in recent years.
“At least 25 shops between Point Pleasant and Eatontown have closed down,” he says, either because there’s no one to take over the business or because the business has changed. One of the main reasons for the decline is that there’s very little shoe manufacturing in the U.S. today. “Most shoes are made overseas using plastic bottoms and less leather, and they don’t last as long. It’s easier to throw them away and buy a new pair than to spend the money to have the shoes repaired,” he says.
Palmieri says the hardest part of the move will be moving the finishing machine from the back of the store where he does most of the work. He says he’ll load the 1,000 pound machine onto a dolly and push it around the corner, and once that’s set up, he’ll be back in business.
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