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Interviews from a multicultural perspective that question the way we understand America
What we take for granted is opportunity.
I never really understood what opportunity meant. Opportunity is the door just being open. Now once the door's open, you're gonna have a lot of challenges. But the door's open. You're free to do whatever you want. And that to me is what the country's about. If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet,
try talking with one of them in real life. Welcome to Back in America, the podcast.
If I were to ask you what is it you do, how would you tell me what it is that you do? We repair shoes. We satisfy customers by fulfilling a need. That means a lot and that's important to me. So sometimes object, have a life, have a story. Is there a pair of shoes here in your store that will say something about your own story?
Okay, I'll give you a story that just happened.
There was an older gentleman, he called me on a Saturday last week. He requested and asked, dearly could I please help him? He says he has a situation and it was an emergency. His wife is diabetic. Her ankles and calves had swollen up. And she needed to extend the length of the straps.
She needed it right away. So Tuesday I got a chance to do the adjustment, make the repair. The gentleman came and when he picked them up, he took a look at them and he was very pleased and very happy so that he can get the shoes back to his wife so that she could wear them.
We were able to accommodate at least one pair. So at least she's able to wear one pair until the others are done. All right, so it's more than a pair of shoes. It's really something which is indispensable for this person. Exactly and it made me feel good because we were able to help and provide and we were able to do it at a convenient time.
And that's what's important, servicing the customer, servicing the need. I want to take you back to your early days when you were a child. What did work look like in your family? There has not been a shoemaker in my family going back generations as far as I know. Going back to early childhood,
work experience comes from my parents. I had two, I guess you would call them middle-class parents that have worked all the time, almost every day. We were living here in Hightstown, New Jersey. I'm born and raised here. So I've been here since 1971.
When we first met, you told me that you started shining shoes in a hotel lobby. Close your eyes and think back of the first day when you walk into the lobby, you have your own shoe shine box or whatever equipment. How did you feel? Can you remember what it was like, the noise, the smell? Were you scared?
Were you excited? Yeah, as a matter of fact, I just thought about that this past weekend. The memory was the general manager. I can never forget. He was from Europe and his name was Simon Younger. He was from the Netherlands. And he was asked from what I understand
to turn the hotel around because it wasn't performing very well. I remember actually distinctly on a Saturday, a cousin and myself, we took a trip to New Brunswick to go to a business expo. And we attended and I didn't get much information from the expo. So I'm gonna have to think of something creative
and do something on my own. Lo and behold, we're coming just right near at the time of Princeton Marriott Hotel. I asked my cousin, turn over, make a right and exit. So we exit, we go to the hotel, I walk through the lobby and I didn't see what I thought I would find, a shoeshine service or repair service or a shoeshine stand.
Long story short, I called on Monday and made an appointment to go see the general manager. My father and I went to go meet with the general manager and I proposed what it was that I wanted to do. And he was very interested because he says over in the Netherlands, that was uncommon. But he was surprised over in the States, at least in this Eastern part,
that nobody had provided that service. And he was just as excited and eager as I was. And that's what happened. How old were you? About 24. And how did you feel on the first day when you came to do your job? Nervous, scared.
My mother used to get on me for being not prompt as much. I took my time. That was one day I was up right in her. You were shining shoes in front of everybody in the lobby. Did it touch you anything about people? Did you develop an understanding of people that you might not have had before doing that? Prior to that, and still to an extent,
I've been a shy individual. It took shyness away right away because I had to interact with customers. I didn't have friends or family around to back me up. So I had to speak for myself. And if anything had brought me out of the shell, it was that, most definitely, because you're asking customers
if they would like their shoes shined. Or if they stopped by at the time I did have a stand, they would come and interact and discuss with you and have discussions and talk about current events or whether you had to speak. So that's what happened. Do you think you can tell someone by their shoes?
Somewhat, yes. I would say so. What sign? What give it away? What do you look at? Most importantly, this is going back old school, the condition. Usually the condition tells right away.
You can tell if someone either has impeccable taste, if they care about their appearance, if they're very style-oriented, and if they just don't really have a concern for it. And you could also tell by the condition of the soles and the heels. Some customers will just get every cent out of the shoe and wear it so there's holes in it
and then they'll ask you to repair it. And then you have other customers where it'll have the slightest little nick and they want you to take care of it right away. And you can just tell. You could match the shoe to the person or the personality. When did you start to consider that you could do more than shoe shining?
How did that happen? When I started the shoe shine business at the hotel, I did have a stand. I was open Monday through Friday. It started off right away. My first three customers that gave me the inkling or a light bulb went off, I could specifically remember it was a stockbroker,
it was an attorney, and it was a luxury car salesman. The three of them have mentioned they would love to see me usually on a weekly basis to get their shoes cleaned and shined. They had asked would I be interested in going in-house to where their offices were. First being an attorney's office. So now I had to learn how to go
from running the shoe shine stand to doing a mobile service. The shoe shine stand, I had two childhood friends who were very instrumental in building and putting together the shoe shine stand. I had a visual idea. You mean the chair? Yes, we made it out of plywood. We made it like a box.
I went out and bought a chair and bought some tiles. My end was the creative side, the designing. I had the carpet guy, the tile guy who were the same, and then I had my carpenter. So between the three of us, we were able to build a stand. So now I have to figure out how do I provide this service on the road in-house because I can't lug this big shoe shine.
But then maybe after the first week, I'm lugging this big box and I says, well, there's gotta be a better way. And I kid you not, I could see this with my eyes closed. I'm in the hotel lobby, shining shoes. At the time I'm having a break and I would sit and read my newspaper. And they had a Coca-Cola delivery guy come through
with cases of Coca-Cola with a hand truck. I said, that's it, the hand truck. So I bought a hand truck. I think it might've been at Ace Hardware. And I would put the box onto the car. And that's what made the job a lot easier. All right. Then it got to a point where I ended up hiring people.
So that's how I was able to do that. Who would do the shining for you? Yeah. And because I couldn't keep up with the demand. I went from doing an attorney's office to a stock broker house, to a luxury at the time. I think it was Princeton Motorsport Mercedes. And then going back to the hotel.
So where did the shoe repair comes into play? The next light bulb, I noticed if I had 10 customers, nine out of every shoes that I've shined needed some type of repair. So I thought this would be a good idea for convenience
to have one stop. Because if they see me the due to cleaning and shining, they have to take it somewhere else for repair. But that's, they're consuming a lot of time on their end. Okay. So at the time here in Heitstown, there was an Italian gentleman that I knew. It was Ben Shearer.
I asked him one day, if I could pick up the shoes, bring them to you, you repair them. And then I take them back. Is it something that you would be interested in? That took off. My job would be to pick up the shoes. Then I would get a clipboard with notepad and keep track of the shoes.
And I would come up with some type of number based off of the identification of the shoe. I would put it on a piece of masking tape, take it to him. And then once a week, I'd pick all the shoes up, bring them back into this place. And I would now shine them up. Because I realized at the time, most shoemakers did a quick shine.
I would deliver it back to the customers. But then I came up with an idea with marketing. So I came up with the idea of putting them in packaging. And we helped design some type of a sticker label that I would put on the paper bag. And at the time, I used to go to ShopRite because they used to give these extra bags. Now I put the label on there.
And then I went and found the paper product place out in I think Trenton. And I would order plain bags and put this sticker on there. And voila, it became a one-stop shop. But then the idea came, I would be interested in learning how to run a shop myself. So I went back to Ben and I'd asked him if he'd be interested in selling me his business,
but he also would have to teach me the business. And at the time, he did agree at the time. So that's how that came about. All right. And so what happened? Because I think you have been trained to use machines, right? Yes. You went to Chicago or somewhere?
I've been to a trade, my first trade show was in Chicago. Where that after you started doing the shoe repair yourself? That was during the same time. Ben and I really didn't come to an agreement. I had made a phone call to a gentleman that owned and operated and repaired shoe repair machinery in upstate New York. So I asked him to place an order with brand new machinery.
And he had mentioned there's a convention that comes up in Chicago. I think it'd be worth the while if you could try to get to go. And that's what I did. And I got a chance to learn. I got a chance to meet people. But I'll tell you, when I went to the first convention, it opened my eyes.
My eyes were always open, but it really opened my eyes because I really got a chance to see three dimension as opposed to one dimension. I got a chance to see different products, different materials. The people that are involved in the conventions, they're suppliers to the whole footwear industry. It's not just shoe shining and shoe repair.
So they provide materials even for a lot of the manufacturer. So again, it was like a kid in a candy store.
Do you remember the first shoe that you actually fixed, repaired?
The first pair of shoes that I fixed, I remember it was a woman's pair of shoes and she needed new dowel lifts. And at the time, I didn't have any formal training. I broke the lift and I didn't know how to get the pin out.
I had to call the customer with embarrassment and explain to her. I asked her what the worth would be or what we could agree on the value of the price.
And I had the writer check.
This happens two more times. I'm in tears. I call the owner of the company who sold me the machinery and explain to him what was going on. And he says, sit tight, relax. I'm going to help you out. We're going to find you a shoemaker because there's no actual school for this.
He had introduced me to him by phone and then I physically went to go visit this place. It's in Manhattan. He and I had communicated. He had offered to teach me the trade. I had to learn how to do my own repairs. He had to teach me how to take machinery apart and put it back together.
So I had to learn all of this in one year. The person that taught me, his name was Hernando Bustos from Columbia. His deal was to help me Thursdays and Fridays religiously for one year. I want to ask you also that the sort of network of drop-off that you build with dry cleaner. That's another dimension to your business, right?
How did you make that happen? Prior to the pandemic, I still had my guys that would go out. We had corporate accounts set up where they would go on Mondays through Friday, drop off shoes for pickup and delivery, for repairs. And they would also do the shoe shining in-house. I had trained them to do what I used to do when I first started. I guess a little before the pandemic, again,
we were running through a rough time with our bank loan. So I had to get creative. And someone had mentioned something to me about a dry cleaner once. And I thought, that's interesting because I'm about convenience. This is the same thing. If I go to a dry cleaner, pick up the shoes, repair them, clean them, and bring them back, because they supply the same amount of energy to do the shoe shining and shoe repair, but they don't do the production.
There's a third party. So I went with one dry cleaner. And then at the time, that increased to about maybe at one time about 20 different dry cleaners. But again, I have this creative sense and I visualize a lot and I do dream. What do they get in return, the dry cleaners? We came to a percentage. My cut would be 70%.
Theirs would be 30%. But now again, once they get the product, they could charge whatever they want, because my responsibility is to just repair the shoes. So today, if something goes wrong in what you do, and how do you make it right for the clients? I'm old school. I believe in responsibility, integrity.
We honor our work that comes back within a reasonable time. And I could usually dissect the shoe and tell if it's an air on our part or theirs. I take it back and repair it. And I'll even clean it back up and return it to them. That's just goodwill, so to say. That's what's lost today. Nowadays, you go and buy a product or a service, nobody wants to be responsible. They just want to take the money,
but they're not giving you much for the value anymore. That's lost.
So you are a black craftsman. Yes. And you went from shoe shine to shoe repair, and now you've got your own business. Did it change anything in the way people see you?
I think so. And I'm going to make a joke for this. I've been known for speaking clearly, educated, and I do have some background with education prior to working with shoes. What did you do? I worked retail with clothing. I've worked wholesale with clothing. I used to work as an order picker and a counter person at a plumbing and heating supply store.
That was prior to me starting my business with the shoe shining. I went to school quite often. And so you get a habit of speaking correctly and speaking to the customer, being honest with them. So where I'm going at with this is sometimes the customers will talk to me on the phone, and they will think I'm white. And then when they come here, they'll say that I'm black. And they've actually joked about it many times. And there's no problem.
And it's really not a problem when they see the work. They know that this is the real deal, and they know that I'm serious about this. So basically you are telling me that nothing has changed from the time on how people saw you when you were shining shoes to now as a business owner. No, I think they look at me as the same. And it's because I try to be an utmost person, respectful, integrity in my work, being professional. I think you can tell that from the beginning. I know I do if I meet a repair person or if I come across someone in sales.
You can usually tell what the individual is like. That's not difficult to tell. I've been used to learning how to read people from maybe the first pair of shoes that I've shined because you have to interact with the customer. So you have to have an idea. Tell me more about that. Any stories or memories that come back to you? Oh, I could tell you thousands of stories.
Let me think.
I don't know if this is political, racial. This is not what this is about. But I'd like to share with you a real special story. At the time, I had a gentleman that kept asking me for a job. And I was a little reluctant to giving him a job. One of the things was at the time, we really didn't need the help. But I did respect his persistence. I'm going to try to tread lightly here.
He was from the urban area. And I thought it might have been a little bit of a challenge for him, dealing with the type of customers that we dealt with. And I'll never forget the first time we took him out, it was his first day. And we went into a corporate office. I think it was pharmaceutical. The executives, one of them had a gumball machine in his office. So I tell the guy, okay, while I'm training him, it's your turn.
I want you to service the customer, and I'll sit back, watch, and I'll critique you and tell you what's right and wrong. So he starts to shine his shoes. They're heading it off telling jokes to one another. And my customer had mentioned to him, relax, take it easy, don't be nervous. I know it's your first time. And they get done. He pays him, he gives him a tip.
And I'm talking to the customer, and the gentleman that was working with me at the time made a comment to the customer about his gumball machine. So he says, wow, I love gumballs. Can I get a gumball? I'm just, yeah, go ahead. Just crank it, take as many as you'd like. So my customer asked him, did he like the gumball machine?
And he says, yeah. He says, okay, just take it. And he says, what, the gumballs? He says, no, take the whole machine. He says, no, you got to be kidding me. He says, no, I'm not kidding. Just go ahead and take it. So we come around.
We say goodbye. My friend and I are the guy who worked with me to load the van with the gumball machine. We're driving down the highway, and he's all excited about the job. He loves the job. He loves working with customers. It's fun. It's energetic.
And I asked him, I says, so what did you think of that guy at the office? And he says, no, he's a great guy. Can you really believe he gave me a gumball machine? And I says, yeah, I can believe it. So this is great. I can't wait to tell my family. I says, can I ask you a question? And he says, yeah.
I said, see, we're all alike. There's no difference. And you thought some of the customers might be a little bit different or challenging. We're all the same. That stood out in the back of my mind. It'll be there for the rest of my life. Wow. Amazing story.
What advice would you give someone starting small and dreaming of building a food workshop like you did? You have to find something that you truly love. You have to have a deep passion for it. It's not about the success or money because you're going to have hard times. There is no doubt. No one makes it without it. If you don't have the passion, the determination, the love, that's what gets you through those hard times. If you don't have those two or three, it makes it very difficult, nearly to the point where it could be impossible.
So you have to dream. You have to be determined. And you have to have a strong work ethic. You just have to. I just turned 61 and I still have the same work ethic now, if not more than before. And my wife still has a difficult time with slowing me down. And what is it for you? What is a strong work ethic?
What does it mean? Loving what you do and whatever it is that you do, constantly trying to get better at the craft. And I do that all the time. I still read. I still go online. I still call all of my buddies. I'll call those that have been doing this a lot longer than I. I'll read journal magazines.
I really follow fashion. That's how I got started. So the fashion is what helps me. Because case in point, I just went maybe a month ago, my wife and I went to Timberland to buy a pair of boots to go from the shop to home and out in the street during the week. And I'll look at how the boot is constructed. And I'll take ideas from that in case I come across that idea or that problem later. So I still do that every day. And finally, what is America to you?
It's opportunity. And I got to say this to you truthfully. My hobby is motocross. I've been doing it since probably the age of seven. I don't do it now because of the responsibility of work. I probably should do it as a getaway. But a gentleman that I follow, who I admire to or look up to as a role model, he's multi-time world champion. And he had said something during an interview that was very profound and it meant a lot to me.
And I never understood this until then. What we take for granted is opportunity. I never really understood what opportunity meant. Opportunity is the door just being open. Now, once the door is open, you're going to have a lot of challenges. But the door is open. You're free to do whatever you want. And that to me is what the country is about.
I've been given an opportunity, whether it was through training, whether it was from the bank, whether it was from the attorneys, any good fortune that I've had to help get me here, it was an open door. Now it was up to me to do what I want with it. Trust you me, the door wanted to close many times. But once the door actually opened, and that's what this country is all about, and people fail to realize that. No matter who's made it in success, we failed to realize there was a lot of difficulties. There was a lot of uphill battles and challenges and adversity. But the door was open and they just made it happen.
All right. That's what that means to me. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.