A collection of shoes sits on a shelf, the fluorescent lights reflecting in the shining leather. The shoes are waiting for their owner. His arrival is announced with the cling of an overhead bell, an old-fashioned sound that mixes well with the nostalgic feel of the shoe-shine shop.
The store is Andy’s Shoe Shine. Formerly Henry’s Shoe Shine, the location has been a shoe-shine shop since 1966. That’s 46 years the tiny, hallway-sized store has virtually stood still while Phoenix grew into the 21st century. The business is still going strong thanks to its current owner, Andy Millsap.
Though shoe-shine shops are an oddity in any city these days, Millsap said it isn’t too difficult to run an old-fashioned business in the 21st century, as long as you target the right clientele.
“When I found this here I thought I had discovered something super because it was right where the lawyers, the judges, the business people, the administrative people come and most of them wear hard shoes,” Millsap said.
The store’s location is vital to its success, since there aren’t as many people wearing business shoes as there were when Millsap began his career 46 years ago.
Millsap started shoe shining as a teenager, working at a shop after school with fellow classmates.
“We had two chairs apiece and it was kind of like a challenge because when the people started piling in we’d see who could do it the fastest,” Millsap said.
It was at this first job that Millsap started to notice he was a natural with shoes. While his classmates would get 30- or 40-cent tips, Millsap was receiving 50 cents or even dollars as tips.
Millsap, now 63, took his expertise and acquired the former Henry’s Shoe Shine seven years ago, making it his own. He hired additional employees to help with not only shoe shine, but also shoe repair. Millsap added the repair services in order to cater to needs that have arisen over the years, such as repairing tennis shoes. He charges between $5 and $10 for shoe shine. Shoe repairs are more varied depending on materials.
The store has gone through some periods of financial struggle, particularly during the recession, but Millsap says this was not due to his type of business as much as the general state of the economy.
To keep the small business in the future, Millsap made his business mobile. He re-worked some of his chairs to take them to events at the Phoenix Convention Center. To maintain an aura of the past, Millsap decided to use two of the five original orange chairs.
Millsap began doing Phoenix convention events about a year ago and has about four employees on standby to work those events.
Millsap first went mobile about 15 years ago. He took a shoe shine chair to weekly car auctions where he would offer complimentary shoe shines to promote his business. Going mobile has helped the business, Millsap said, but he doesn’t want to stop there. His ultimate dream is to open several shoe-shine locations around the Phoenix area.
Despite big plans and modern adjustments, the shop still maintains its old-time feel, which appeals to its customers. John Boelman, an accounting operations director for Banner Health, came into the shop for the first time Aug. 24.
He said it was recommended to him by Eddie Zavurov, owner of the Downtown Barber Shop next to the San Carlos Hotel, another business from an era of tailored suits, neck shaves and leather shoes.
Boelman grew up on a farm in Iowa and likes to conserve a little nostalgia in his life. He had Millsap shine his black boots.
“I don’t care if it’s an office job or outside work, you gotta put your boots on,” Boelman said.
When another customer, Al Jernigan, an economic developer for the City of Phoenix, walked into the shop, his shoes were already pristine. But Jernigan is a regular at Andy’s and even visited the shop before Millsap owned it.
Jernigan said he keeps coming because of “the fact that Andy came in and transformed [the shop] and grew it into something much bigger overnight.”
Contact the reporter at ascline1@asu.edu
