End of an era
Doors to Petsche’s Shoes will close for good
Anita Petsche Good glances around her store — at shoppers young and old, at the longtime customer who admitted she cried when she heard the news — and braves a smile.
“It hurts,” she says. “It certainly makes me feel sad that we had to reach this decision.”
Sometime in the new year, once they’ve had the chance to sell as many pairs of shoes and boots left in their inventory as possible, the doors to Petsche’s Shoes will close for good.
It will mark the end of an era for the independent retailer, which opened in downtown Kitchener in 1954 and never left.
The family-run shop — now at 147 King St. W. in a unique barrel-vaulted space that used to house Kosky Furs — weathered recessions and construction, endured two moves along King Street West, even survived a devastating 2000 fire that destroyed several neighbouring businesses and apartments. But the time has come. “I think the retail sector, right now, is the one sector that is faltering,” says Petsche Good, a loyal supporter of the downtown core who’s saddened by its retail struggles. “It’s an increasingly-difficult enterprise.”
Online sales have been hurting bricks-and-mortar stores like hers for a while now; lately wholesalers and distributors have been trying their hand at retail, too, further muddying the waters.
“I fully expected that this year, we’d have a major turnaround,” Petsche Good says, especially with LRT construction in the area, for the most part, complete. “But that simply hasn’t materialized.”
Sales remain flat. “You don’t want to struggle. You can do it for a while … but it can’t be your ongoing operational business plan.”
Additionally, Petsche Good says she has some health concerns that she’ll need to deal with a few years down the road.
“I just felt that the timing was the most beneficial right now.”
Sales and staggered discounts can be offered through the lucrative holiday shopping season. While her lease is up at the end of January, her landlord has offered the opportunity to renew on a month-to-month basis.
Petsche Good’s parents, Gustav and Edeltraut, founded the family shoe store in 1954, offering unique brands — many imported from Europe — and impeccable customer service. In that sense, not a lot has changed.
“Quality was always very high on my Dad’s list of priorities,” Petsche Good says.
“I certainly have tried to maintain that.”
Over the years, a number of family members worked in the business; her daughter, Shannon Robichaud (Good), is a current employee.
The store opened a year before Petsche Good was born, and before she was old enough to serve customers, her father had her cleaning off shoe boxes coated with dust from the Kaufman Rubber Company across the street.
“I would complain vigorously,” she recalls. “Someone once called me the reluctant shoe-seller.”
But she worked at the store through high school and university, and returned to it almost 30 years ago, following a decade spent in Ottawa working at the National Library and the Carleton University library.
When she told her staff of six of her intentions back in the spring, she said she’d understand if they left to find other jobs. “Everyone’s sticking it through,” she says. “They’re an extended family, really.”
Her customers, too, have offered heartfelt words of support, in person and on social media.
“I’m very grateful for the loyalty people have shown,” Petsche Good says. “You become familiar with people’s names, faces, shoe sizes. I think that kind of feeling isn’t prevalent in a lot of shopping experiences today.”