Continuing the Home is On Hutt Street series from last month, we bring you to Ideal Shoe Repairs. We get to see Richard often but it was nice to get to know him and his business a bit more!
A BIT ABOUT YOU
My name is Richard. When Im not working at Ideal Shoe Repairs my hobby is lawn bowls. I used to work as a chef until the age 0f 30, and won apprentice chef of the year for 3 years in a row. I also worked for hotels whilst I was a chef and some of my weeks consisted of 90 hour shift work!
HOW DID YOU GET INTO THIS BUSINESS?
Ideal Shoe Repairs is a family business (second generation). It dates back to 1929 when the original owner, Mr. Weber opened the store. it was then passed on to Stan Koukourou in 1951 and to my father, Andy in 1979. After that it was passed to me, the current owner.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT THE WORK?
The customers are what makes it enjoyable. They are friendly and loyal and it really creates a family-like atmosphere on Hutt street. This also includes all the small businesses surround Ideal as everyone has gotten to know each other.
ANY TIPS OR TRICKS WHEN WORKING WITH CERTAIN MATERIALS?
Leather is the easiest material to work with and synthetics are the most difficult.
The best way to get stains out of materials like suede, fabric shoes/runners is warm RUNNING water, with the secret being the clean running water. (And a microfibre cloth) It’s a trade secret and a hack that more people should know about, instead of using all these chemicals on shoes and ruining the colour, smell etc.
HAS THIS YEAR AFFECTED YOUR BUSINESS? IF SO, HOW?
Yes it has affected our business and all of Hutt Street! As soon as the COVID-19 restrictions were brought in earlier this year, our business was down 45% already. A positive is that things are back up and running again and we’re now at about 80% of last years business.
Since supporting local, and locally made are becoming such important factors in Australia, that has definitely helped our business grow recently. Currently, we have been doing all the uniforms, menus, aprons, pouches etc for the new Casino which is a huge project for us.
Stay tuned for our next Home is On Hutt Street!