Shoe repair shop says 'so long' this Friday
EUGENE, Ore. - Jan Brockamp and her husband Calvin have the shoe repair business in their blood.
They opened the current location of Jan's Specialty Shoe Service on Olive Street 28 years ago.
Jan was a 15-year old girl when she started out, working in her father's shop right across the street. That's also where she met her future husband and business partner.
Now one of Eugene's oldest shoe repair shops is closing it's doors this Friday.
"It's going to be hard because we have a lot of really great customers that we've been working with for many, many years," she said.
Calvin said the people they serve will be what he will miss the most, but he said it's time to retire. "We've had great people that come back all the time and great people that have moved away. We're just missing the people but we have to take care of ourselves," she said.
These days, Jan said, they repair 50 to 100 pairs of shoes a week. With all those years of fixing shoes behind them, Calvin says the business just isn't the same. "When you can buy athletic shoes for $40 and repair them for $40 and they're halfway worn out, it's not worth it."
Jan and Calvin are hanging it up for personal reasons, not because of the economy. They'll tell you all those years of fixing shoes for their customers has been worth every minute. Their last day of business will be Friday, July 30.
