US shoe cream stands are losing their luster

New York – On a recent winter weekday at the Penn Station Shoe Repair and Shine Center, men jump into shoeshine chairs and pull out newspapers and phones to read as cleaners get to work applying polish and elbow grease to loafers , boots and other leather footwear. When they’re done, those customers hand over $8 in cash at the counter, where a sign reads, “We’re not God, but we keep soles.”

Shoe shine has a illustrious history in the United States. In the 1860s, Horatio Alger popularized the American rags-to-riches tale with his book Ragged Dick, about a shoe shiner (or “bootshine”) on his way to riches. The “Shoeshine Boys” (and sometimes the girls) went on to star in countless movies and TV shows.

Today, the tradition of quick shoe shines has greatly diminished, and many booths like the one at Penn Station have disappeared across the country. The fall has been exacerbated by the pandemic, telecommuting and the rise in popularity of more casual workwear as people return to the office. SC Johnson, which makes Kiwi’s biggest brand of shoe polish, even said in January that it had stopped selling the brand in the UK due to falling demand (they still sell it in the US).

The last time shoe shine was included in the census was in 2007, when only 30 establishments were counted. According to research firm IBISWorld, the larger shoe repair market is set to decline by an estimated 23% between 2013 and 2023 to reach $307 million. According to Nielsen data, shoe polish sales in 2022 were 27.3 million units, down 29% from 2019, indicating changes caused by the pandemic.

Neeson Haimov, who owns the Penn Station stand, said his stand would be selling 80 to 100 shoes every weekday until the pandemic. Now there are 30 to 50 from Tuesday to Thursday, and even fewer on Mondays and Fridays. Hybrid work is hurting his business.

“Until people get back to work, the problems won’t be solved,” said Haimov, who takes advantage of the fact that commuters traveling to and from New York can’t get their shoes shined where they live. “And that’s not good for landlords and tenants like us. So, we are waiting. But eventually, we hope, everything will return to normal. But if we don’t know.’

Customer Ray Azorio gets his shoes shined by Berta Gomez at Alpha Shoe Repair Corp. on February 3, 2023 in New York City.

Rory Heenan, 38, an accountant from Philadelphia, said that as a child, he would take the train to work with his father every Friday and watch him shine his shoes.

“I’d just sit here like a little guy, you know, and watch,” he said. “And here I am, you know, 30 years later, doing the same thing. So it’s definitely something that has moved on over time.”

On the other side of town, in the corridor between the subway and the Port Authority bus station, Jairo Cardenas is also feeling the squeeze. Business at Alpha Shoes Repair Corp., which he has run for 33 years, is down 75% from pre-pandemic levels. He has one shoe shiner left of the three he worked before the pandemic. His masters cleaned 60-70 shoes a day. Now a good day is 10 to 15 sparkles.

Cardenas’ landlord gave him a break on his rent, but he’s still struggling and has seen several other shoe shine shops in the area close. However, he sees an increase in the number of people returning to work and hopes that business will gradually return to normal by spring.

Repairing shoes usually brings more money than shine. At David Mesquita’s Leather Spa, which operates five shoe repair and cleaning businesses, including two in Grand Central, the bulk of its business is repairing shoes, bags and clothing. But shoe polish is still the main draw to Leather Spa as it is not available everywhere.

Jaira Cardenas, owner of Alpha Shoe Repair Corp., polishes a pair of boots he is repairing on February 3, 2023 in New York.

Before the pandemic, the Leather Spa had four shoe shine chairs in Grand Central and six shoe shiners doing about 120 shines a day. Nowadays, there are three shoe shiners who clean shoes 40-50 times on the best days.

But Mesquita is seeing people gradually come back. Its shoe shine numbers in December 2022 are up 52% ​​compared to December 2021. Monday and Friday are less busy than the middle of the week due to the hybrid schedule of office workers.

“Traffic is slowly coming back, we’re seeing passengers coming in and all that, but we’re still not 100% back to where we were,” Mesquita said.

Mesquita said shoe shine won’t go away completely.

“I think it’s just a little luxury,” he said. “People like to treat themselves, you know, once a week or twice a week, or, you know, once every two weeks. It’s just nice.”

Apart from the transit hubs of big cities, airports are one of the few places where you can safely clean your shoes. Jill Wright owns Executive Shine, which operates shoe shine stations at the Denver and Charlotte airports. Her business was destroyed when air travel stopped.

When the airports started to reopen, they were empty. The only people who shine shoes are the pilots and crew members, which has kept her company in business, she said. Right now, Wright says her business is still only 35% of what it was in 2019.

“Travel has really changed,” she said. “Companies are starting to come back, but not as much as before.”

Business travel is recovering, but the US Travel Association predicts that business travel will still fall 10% in 2023 from 2019 and return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024. Meanwhile, people dress differently when traveling. Instead of traveling in work clothes, some travelers who still want to shine their shoes will travel in tennis shoes, take the shoes out to shine them and then put them back in the bag, Wright said.

Like Mesquita, Wright expects the demand for shoe shine will never completely disappear because it’s more than just a transactional service. A sparkler is a moment of connection between two people, especially at an airport where there’s a lot of rush and stress, she said.

“People come to shine their shoes, but they also come to socialize and talk and just to relax and talk and be seen and feel compassion,” she said.