Shoe repair is a fading trade. On Long Island, it still has sole.

Alessandro "Alex" Piscitelli remembers being a 5-year-old watching in amazement as his father stitched worn footwear and other leather goods back to life at his Greenlawn shoe repair shop in 1968.

By the time Piscitelli graduated high school, he had learned enough of the craft to start working full time at the shop, which was opened in 1954 by his father, Mario Piscitelli, an immigrant from Durazzano, Italy.

"I saw the people," said Alex Piscitelli, who took over Mario’s Shoe Repair in 1982. "It was busy in and out, so busy, and I says, ‘You know, I could make a living here.’ "

More than four decades later, Piscitelli is part of a small group of Long Island cobblers. Cobblers are shoe repair professionals who also work belts, handbags, luggage and other leather goods, often using specialized stitching, polishing and restoration techniques.

Long Island repair businesses may have an advantage because many are located in or near high-income areas where residents can afford to buy expensive shoes and see value in repairing them, shop owners and industry experts said.

But their numbers remain small, and Long Island has lost a few longtime shops in recent years.

The Village Cobbler Shoppe in Riverhead closed in 2024, after 53 years in business.

Andrea’s Shoe Repair in Huntington closed this year after the death of the shop’s owner, Andrea Sorrentino, who was a mentor to Piscitelli, died in June at age 90. Sorrentino opened his shoe store around 1976, according to a Newsday obituary published in June.

Several challenges help explain why fewer people are entering the shoe repair trade and why shops continue to disappear, said Mitch Lebovic, administrator of the Shoe Service Institute of America, a trade group based in Wheaton, Illinois. Among them is the lack of succession plans at many mom-and-pop businesses when owners retire or die, he said.

 

The industry also is contending with changes in how people work and dress. The number of people working in office buildings — and wearing professional attire — has not returned to the levels that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lebovic said. The pandemic started in early 2020 and ended in May 2023.

Adding to the business challenges is the growth of fast fashion, which has flooded the market with inexpensive shoes that can cost less to replace than to repair.

Clothing and footwear companies are under increasing pressure to produce and sell cheaper goods, making it harder for repair shops to compete with the price of simply buying something new, said sustainability expert Sandra Goldmark, who is a professor of professional practice and associate dean for engagement and impact at the Columbia Climate School.

"If a new shoe costs $20 and it costs $25 to repair it, obviously that’s a really hard case to make — even for someone who wants to keep their shoes," she said.

Furthermore, many of today's shoes are made of cheap materials that make them harder to fix than higher-quality shoes, she said.

Shoe repair shop owners interviewed by Newsday said those still operating in the region remain busy, even as fewer people enter the trade and longtime businesses continue to disappear nationwide.

What it takes to keep a shoe repair shop going

Luis O. Sandoval is a second-generation owner of Sandy’s Shoe Repair in Syosset, which his father, Luis A. Sandoval, founded in the Bronx in the early 1980s under a different name.  

The younger Sandoval began working in the Bronx shop at age 11, learning the tools of the trade from his father, who had co-owned a shoe manufacturing factory with his brother in Colombia before immigrating to New York in 1978.

"The shoe repair industry has always been in my blood," said Luis O. Sandoval, 55, adding that he also was drawn to the work because he wanted to spend time with his father.

By the late 1980s, the elder Sandoval owned five shoe repair shops in the Bronx and one on Long Island, in Farmingdale.

He relocated with his family — a wife and three children — from the Bronx to Farmingdale in 1990, and moved the Farmingdale store to Syosset in 1991, his son said.

He had sold all of his shops, except the one in Syosset, by the late 1990s because of the heavy demands of running the locations, his son said.

"He found it [to be] too much. He didn't want to have the hassle and the bustle of owning shops and going in there and checking on everything and everyone. He just wanted to concentrate on the one that was the most successful, which was Syosset," he said.

Luis O. Sandoval took over the business after his father died in 2020 at age 74.

Sandoval said he initially wanted to forge his own path rather than follow his father into the family business.

"I did my college thing. I went on my own," he said.

But after his father died, Sandoval found himself drawn back to the shop.

"Little did I know after he passed, I would end up coming in loving the business more than ever," he said.

Sandoval said expanding the shop's luxury-brand restoration services in 2020 has helped keep business steady during slower periods.

Sandoval said his father also taught him the importance of helping customers understand the value of shoe repairs.

"My father taught me: If you talk to the customer and educate them, their value systems change, and they see the benefit of a shop like mine. And I’ve been able to keep that up," he said.

Being in Syosset, a high-income area, also helps his business, said Sandoval, who brings on two freelance cobblers when extra hands are needed.

Nationwide, shoe repair shops that are doing well these days tend to be in or near high-income areas where residents can afford to buy expensive shoes that are worth the cost of repairs, Lebovic said.

In 2024, the median household income in Syosset was $187,273 and the poverty rate was 4.2%, while in Greenlawn, the median household income was $164,427 and the poverty rate was 6.3%, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.

For comparison, the median household incomes and poverty rates were $130,686 and 6.7%, respectively, in Suffolk County; $146,202 and 5.9% in Nassau County; $85,974 and 13.8% in New York State; and $80,734 and 10.2% in the nation.

Small businesses that repair shoes have to factor in their rising expenses, such as rent and labor, when setting their prices, which can sometimes be high enough to turn off customers, Goldmark said.

"A repair person needs to pay themselves a living wage in New York City or Long Island or wherever, and that is competing with wages that are much lower overseas, typically where these shoes are being manufactured," she said.

Some successful shoe repair businesses have started mail-in repair operations to be more competitive, Lebovic said.

"There’s still people wearing quality shoes. A lot of people don’t know where to send them [for repairs]. So many of today’s cobblers are taking to social media to develop a social media presence, and then from that social media presence, building a mail-in business," he said.

Many shoe repair shops today lack succession plans because younger generations don’t have an interest in the family businesses, which require on-the-job training because formal footwear repair training programs are difficult to find, he said. 

"So a lot of people, if they can’t find a family member, if they can’t find an apprentice, they simply close up shop," he said.

Sandoval’s 19-year-old daughter, who is a college student majoring in business, might at some point take over his business as an owner who employs people to do the shoe repairs, he said.

"If you have a good quality cobbler in the back, you don’t necessarily need to do the work. You just need to make sure the work is done correctly and properly," he said.

Alex Piscitelli plans to keep working as long as he can, but his four adult children won’t be taking over Mario’s Shoe Repair after he retires, he said.

"I knew what I wanted to do, but you don’t want to force your kids to do anything. I got successful kids, you know?"  

Also he and his wife, Stephanie, want their children to be in careers in which health insurance will be provided by employers, which wouldn’t be the case if they were owners of the repair shop, they said.

The couple are insured through Stephanie’s job as a full-time aide at a high school.

When repairs are worth it

For Alex Piscitelli, learning the cobbler trade from his father was rewarding, but demanding.

"It was tough. ... He was strict with me," he said.

Piscitelli took over Mario’s Shoe Repair in 1982, after his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His father died at age 50 in 1988.

Using repair machines that are more than 100 years old, Piscitelli is a solo operator who enjoys the craft of giving new life to worn-out shoes. Decades ago, he developed a sixth sense for what stitch would work, what polish would be best and what heel could be smoother, he said. But he also is honest with customers when they should cut their losses and throw away the shoes, he said.

"If they’re going to get worse, what good is it to me to fix the shoes and then I give them back and they break in a week?" said Piscitelli, 63, adding that unscrupulous practices like that would hurt his reputation.

He’s earned a good living as a cobbler, having bought a home in 1984 with his wife and later put his children through college.

It helps that he owns the Greenlawn building occupied by the repair shop, so the steep rent challenging other small businesses on Long Island isn’t an issue for him, he said.

In mid-October, Huntington resident Rosalie Paradiso picked up a pair of black, sparkly high heels at Mario’s, which fixed the straps on her "going-out, party shoes" for $20.

It was her first time in Mario’s; her regular repair place, Andrea’s Shoe Repair, closed this year, she said.

The comfort of the shoes made them worth fixing, she said.

"Well, a lot of people choose to just go to DSW or online and order online. Yes, I can do that, but if I can’t find the right shoe. ... How many times have I ordered shoes and they went back because they’re not comfortable?"

Huntington resident Steven Spucces, a financial adviser, wears "corporate casual" clothes to his job in Melville, he said.

In mid-October, he paid $68 for scuff-mark removal and polishing for one pair of Ferragamo shoes and two pairs of Cole Haan shoes at Mario’s Shoe Repair, which he visits quarterly for footwear maintenance because he likes the work quality and customer service, said Spucces, 50.

For him, the repairs are a worthwhile investment.

"When you buy expensive, nice shoes, you want to take care of them," he said.