Published August 2001

Everett sole man keeps customers coming back

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

For more than six decades, a Papadimitriou has been repairing shoes in downtown Everett. And though the shop’s name has changed, as well as its location, its commitment to customers has remained the same.

“Always I give the best quality service and quality material, and I always spend time with my customers,” said Mihail “Mike” Papadimitriou, owner of People’s Shoe Repair, which offers European craftsmanship, works with all shoe types and does orthopedic corrections.

Longtime Everett residents might know the shop best as People’s Shoe Rebuild, started in 1933 by Papadimitriou’s uncle, James “Jim” Dimitrios Papadimitriou, who opened the business on the 2800 block of Colby Avenue. It wasn’t until he decided to retire and asked his nephew, Mike, to take over in 1968 that “Rebuild” became “Repair.”

In his uncle’s day, there were four or five shoe repair shops in the downtown business area vying for customers, Mike Papadimitriou said. But over the years, the number of shops has dwindled, making People’s Shoe Repair one of the only shops left in downtown Everett from that era.

The store’s location has changed some in that time. In 1945, it migrated to the corner of Colby and Pacific avenues. About 20 years later, it moved to a Rockefeller address, and then 12 or so years ago it landed at its current location, 2825 Wetmore Ave.

But the customers have followed, a steady stream from as far north as Arlington and as far south as Mill Creek, keeping the shop in business even when other downtown competitors have closed their doors.

Annually, several thousand pairs of shoes pass through the doors of People’s Shoe Repair, Mike Papadimitriou said, and he credits two things for such loyalty: service and workmanship.

“I don’t just direct business. Always, I spend time because the customers really like to hear something, to say something, not just to give the shoes, collect the money and go,” he said.

As for workmanship, Papadimitriou trained in his native Greece, participating in a three-year program where he “learned to build shoes from scratch.”

In 1967, he emigrated from Greece to come to the United States and worked for the Buffalo Shoe Co. in Seattle before he got the call from his uncle, who had come to the United States in the early 1900s.

“When I came, I came specializing in shoe-making and orthopedic correction shoes,” Mike Papadimitriou said. “When a person works as a shoemaker and knows how to fix shoes from the scratch, when it comes to repair, it’s no problem.”

In his 800-square-foot shop, he re-stitches shoe soles, trims heels, makes orthopedic corrections and the like with the aid of a stitching machine, a sewing machine and a finishing machine, which includes a sander, blower and trimmer. It’s hard work, “heavy work,” but work that Papadimitriou loves doing.

“I enjoy what I am doing because if I don’t like my work, I don’t expect my customers to like it,” he said.

To contact People’s Shoe Repair, call 425-252-5544.

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