He also keeps the front and back doors open and has several ceiling fans operating all the time. “If I tell you how much we lost, you will cry: $700,000.”ĭuring the months it were closed, Kemel and a friend installed a ventilation system that draws fresh air from the roof into the store.
We made about $15 a day.” Kemel confesses that he used every penny of his retirement money to keep the store afloat. “When we finally re-opened in July,” said Kemel “the customers didn’t come back.
The shop had to close for several months. The pandemic has had a devastating effect on Model Shoe Renew. Pandemic forces closure, devastating losses If he sees you walking in ‘funny’, he’ll figure out what kind of sole or insert you need. “I have one pair of Danner’s boots that he has resoled eight times.
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“Over the years, Peter has fixed my soles and zippers, and, when I needed it, a professional spit shine,” he said. He just retired after two decades in the US Air Force, so he knows a good pair of leather boots and how expert care can make them last a lifetime. Pierce said he had been coming to Model Shoe Renew for 20 years. He said he treats his customers like they are guests in his home, as Lebanese culture expects.Īnother customer, Berkeley native, Sam Pierce, brought in a pair of tan work boots for Kemel to resole. Kemel echoed what the signs in his store proclaim, “Our work is 100% guaranteed.” He always gives his card with his personal email and phone number to customers in case there are problems.
The customer was doubtful about spending the necessary money. Much-loved shoes are repaired, whatever their stateĭuring this reporter’s visit a customer came in to the store with a pair of short brown leather boots and complained that they hurt her feet. In 2000, after he bought Model Shoe Renew, Kemel realized how special Berkeley citizens were. “Customers would bring in cheap shoes they had bought at Payless, and when I told them it would cost $25 to repair, they complained,” he said. “Ahh, the weather in the Bay Area is just like Byblos, says Kemel.” He found a shoe repair store to buy at the Sun Valley Mall in Concord, but was not happy there. “The weather is cuckoo, and the people were always saying, ‘Quick, close the door, the mosquitoes will come in!’ This is life?” After six months, he returned to Lebanon, but three years later, the couple agreed on a move to California, where one of Kemel’s sisters lived, and they settled in Concord. He agreed and they moved to Orlando, Florida. His wife had lived in the US previously and wanted to move back. In 1996, Kemel was living in Lebanon with his wife and young daughter. He has many hives in Concord and San Pablo and sells his honey, Pete’s Gold Backyard Honey, at Whole Foods. Kemel also carries on this family tradition, although in a scaled-down version. Every year, there would be a line of customers coming up the stairs to our house: doctors, policemen, politicians, generals. “So my father also raised bees to sell the honey. “There were 14 kids in my family, and we ate a lot,” said Kemel. The cobbler shop where Kemel’s grandfather, father and brothers worked was in Byblos, Lebanon. Lining the walls are shoe creams, sprays and dyes in every imaginable color, leather wallets and purses, socks, shoe stretchers, orthotic inserts, toe spacers, laces, belts - even a foot bath. Kemel is proud of this store, where, besides repairing shoes, he stocks several lines of well-crafted new shoes made in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Australia and the US. Model Shoe Renewġ934 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley 94704. Kemel is the third owner of this shoe repair outpost, which opened in Berkeley over 70 years ago. “It was fun, I loved the hammering best,” says Kemel, who, for the last 21 years, has used those skills to give new lives to the shoes of grateful customers at his shop, Model Shoe Renew. When Peter Kemel was eight years old, his grandfather began teaching him the skills that a cobbler needs to learn, including cleaning, gluing and dyeing shoe leather. Peter Kemel, who has owned Model Shoe Renew in downtown Berkeley for 21 years, started learning cobbler skills when he was just 8 years old.