The Shoe Repair Shop

By Léo Azambuja

Ray Duarte at work fine-tuning a new sole he added to a shoe.

Four more than four decades Ray Duarte has owned and operated The Shore Repair Shop in Lihu‘e. For most of his career, he has been the last cobbler in town, making cowboy belts, hunting knifes and gun holsters, and fixing leather boots, carpenter shoes, women’s high heels, leather jackets, zippers, suitcases, backpacks, saddles and many other things you could imagine.

“There was no competition,” Duarte said of when he opened his business 43 years ago in Lihu‘e. “It’s been my wife and I, and throughout the years, my kids helped in the business.”

Today, the shop is still owned and operated by Duarte and his wife, Eunice. But their children have moved on to pursue their own careers. This means once the shop closes, there probably be a void on the island.

“The shoe repair shops are slowly disappearing,” he said. “On different islands the shops are closing down, not too many people are taking over. So, in this trade, in a lot of the businesses, once they close that’s it, there’s nobody to take over.”

Luckily for Kaua‘i, Duarte said he’s “good for another 20 years.”

As a young man, Duarte left Kaua‘i for New York to do volunteer work, and somewhat got into the shoe repair business.

“I just fell into that, and then I learned the trade. I worked in the shoe repair for four years, so I got to know everything about fixing shoes,” said Duarte, adding that upon returning to Kaua‘i, he knew what he was doing, and wasn’t hesitant about opening his own business.

“When I came back to Kaua‘i, this guy had all this equipment in his garage and he was leaving the island,” he said. “I told him, ‘I’ll buy all the machines or whatever he had,’ so I bought it and within one week I was in business.”

The Shoe Repair Shop first opened where the Number 1 Restaurant now stands, but the original building was knocked down by Hurricane ‘Iwa in 1982. So Duarte packed all his equipment and set up shop at Kukui Grove Center for the next 15 years. About 23 years ago, he moved to his current location on Hardy Street, across the street from the DMV and right next to Ikeda’s Barber Shop.

Over the years, he said, the shoe repair trade has slowed down, “for the simple fact they don’t make good shoes anymore.” Shoe companies these days make shoes with materials of lower quality, he said, and it’s difficult to find shoes where both the upper and lower parts are of good quality; it’s either one or the other, or neither.

“Before, everything was stitched or nailed down good, now everything is just glued on,” Duarte said. Additionally, shoe companies nowadays are favoring lighter shoes. “In the old days, the shoes were kinda heavy. Now they make lightweight shoes, and the lightweight material is really airy, and so they disintegrate faster.”

A lot of times, Duarte’s work consists in correcting manufacturers’ mistakes, he said. Because shoes are now mass-produced, there’s no time to give attention to detail. But in a shoe repair shop, an average shoe can become a good one. He pretty much builds new soles for many shoes, and has the perfect sole recipe for all kinds of shoes, from cowboys to carpenters and everything in between.

Seeing Duarte work in his shop is entertainment on its own. The equipment is best described as steampunk machines, with elaborate mechanics that seem impossible to understand. Yet, if anything breaks, Duarte himself fixes it.

“If the machines break, I fix them. I learned over time,” he said, explaining that most of the time, repair work is simply adjusting the machines’ elaborate parts.

Ray Duarte at work.

Besides the usual local customers, Duarte said he gets many orders from off-island customers who met him over the years, and keep coming back for his services.

He also has done a lot of work for film-producing companies, a relationship that goes as far back as when The Fantasy Island was filmed here, going through movies such as Six Days, Seven Nights, and Hollywood blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Some of the work Duarte does includes stretching shoes for people with wide feet or bunions, and orthopedic work for those who need to compensate for a shorter leg.

Find them at 4442 Hardy St. in Lihu‘e or call (808) 245-6543. They are open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Since they’re old school, they only accept cash or check.