CHAPTER · ABOUT
About Village Shoe Service
Village Shoe Service is a family owned and operated shoe repair shop and shoe store offering quality footwear and shoe repair. We are dedicated to pleasing our customers and assure that you will have a pleasant experience dealing with us. Larry Schupbach Jr., the owner, has twenty-six years experience and has won several awards for craftsmanship and maintaining the highest standards of excellence in the shoe repair industry. He is also a Certified Pedorthist (C.Ped.). A pedorthist is someone who works with doctors to help people with foot pain using orthosis and proper footwear. We're experts on the products we sell and your satisfaction is guaranteed.
Serving Tucker and Atlanta since 1969.
LARRY SCHUPBACH JR. · OWNER · CERTIFIED PEDORTHIST
Award Winning Craftsman
Quality Shoes, Boots & Repair — We offer quality footwear for just about every occupation.
CHAPTER · PRESS
He's one peach of a cobbler
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION · 10/12/03
By MARIAN DOZIER — For The Journal-Constitution
Photo by KEITH HADLEY / AJC Staff
Since 1995, Larry Schupbach has toiled alone, in relative obscurity, in his 750-square-foot shoe shop in Tucker, fixing soles, shining shoes, stitching handbags. He has a steady clientele, and they trust that his work will be the best. Now, so do about 8,000 of his shoe repair colleagues around the country.
Schupbach, owner of Village Shoe Service, recently won the Grand Silver Cup in the Shoe Service Institute of America's 2003 national competition. The Silver Cup is the group's highest award in the most difficult category — craftsmanship. Each competitor had to submit three pairs of well-worn shoes and repair one shoe from each pair to factory-new condition. Judges then compared the repaired shoe to the unrepaired one.
Schupbach first entered the competition seven years ago. Each year he did better and scored higher. He was determined to win.
"I wanted to see how I'd measure up," he said. "I just wanted that Grand Silver Cup, so I kept at it until I got better year after year. This time I did it."
“I just wanted that Grand Silver Cup, so I kept at it until I got better year after year. This time I did it.”
The cup rewards Schupbach's hard work and highlights his 20-year shoe repair career. Schupbach began when he was 14, as an apprentice to his brother-in-law and the longtime cobbler his relative worked for at Lilburn Shoe Repair. The store owner had three shops then, but sold two — Village Shoe Service and Snellville Shoe Repair — in 1991 to Schupbach's brother-in-law. Schupbach bought the Village store from his brother-in-law eight years ago. And except for a couple of years of auto mechanic work after graduating from Snellville's Brookwood High in 1988, Schupbach has remained true to the leather trade.
"When my brother-in-law first asked me about it [when he was a teenager], I said, 'yeah, OK.' I did it, I liked it and I stayed with it. I liked it from the beginning."
Besides shoes, Schupbach repairs luggage and nearly anything else requiring stitching, including gun holsters, knife sheaths, belts and handbags. He also does a brisk business selling new Bostonian men's dress shoes and Clark's shoes for men and women.
“He's one peach of a cobbler.”
CHAPTER · SSIA NEWS RELEASE
Schupbach Achieves National Recognition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NewsRelease Association Manager · Jimmy Benson
Larry Schupbach of Village Shoe Service 3900 Lavista Road Suite 104 Tucker, GA has been honored by his peers for his craftsmanship and awarded the Grand Silver Cup in the Shoe Service Institute of America's 2003 international Silver Cup Contest.
Schupbach was chosen for recognition by his peers on the basis of his workmanship. To enter the contest, Schupbach submitted two pair of men's shoes and a pair of ladies' shoes. One shoe from each pair was repaired with a new sole and heel. The repaired shoes were then refinished to look like new.
"One of the principal benefits of shoe repair is that consumers can have their shoes repaired to look like new, but for a fraction of the cost of new shoes," says SSIA Association Manager Jimmy Benson. "The purpose of the Silver Cup Contest is to recognize craftsmen such as Larry Schupbach who maximize that benefit and set the standards for our industry."
Benson continued to say that the benefits shoe repair offers go well beyond the cost savings. There is the environmental benefit of the millions of pairs of shoes that do not end up in landfills each year. There are the physical benefits that a well maintained, high quality pair of shoes brings. Finally, there are the medical benefits of shoe repair offered by shops that specialize in orthopedic work.
"All of these benefits start with superior craftsmanship," he says. "That is why craftsmen such as Larry Schupbach are so important."
Judging for the contest took place in June at the Orlando offices of Florida Leather Co. Two master craftsmen and past Silver Cup winners, with a combined 75 years of shoe repair experience served as judges. The judges compared the repaired shoes to their unrepaired mates and evaluated the entries based on how well Schupbach had restored them to their original, factory condition.
Schupbach will receive his award from SSIA President John McLoughlin at the 99th Annual Shoe Service Convention. The convention will be held July 19-20, 2003 at the Sheraton Hotel in Sunnyvale, CA
The Silver Cup Contest, an international competition dedicated to excellence in shoe repairing, is sponsored by Supplier and Wholesale members of the Shoe Service Institute of America, and the craftsmen of the shoe repair industry. Schupbach also took 1st place in the Casual Shoe Category.
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For more information please contact Larry Schupbach at 770-938-7463 or SSIA Association Manager Jimmy Benson.
CHAPTER · CRAFTSMANSHIP
Awards
Larry has won several awards from the SSIA for craftsmanship and maintaining the highest standards of excellence in the shoe repair industry. He now serves as one of the judges for the shoe re-crafting competition.
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2003 | Grand Silver Cup Award |
| 2003 | 1st Place International Re-crafting Competition · 100th Year Anniversary · Casual Shoe Repair · 1st Place |
| 2003 | South Silver Cup |
| 2002 | Half Sole & Heel · 2nd Place |
| 2002 | Southeastern Blue Ribbon |
| 1998 | Southeastern Silver Cup |
| 1997 | Eastern Red Ribbon |
| 1995 | Eastern Red Ribbon |
We offer a Factory Quality Shoe Re-crafting Service.
CHAPTER · IN PRINT
Village Shoe News
Village Shoe Service is now located at 4286 Railroad Ave. Tucker, GA 30084 Main St. & Railroad Ave. in Downtown Tucker · 770-938-7463
Larry Schupbach Wins The 2003 Grand Silver Cup Award. SSIA News Release. AJC Article — He's one peach of a cobbler.
July 2002 · Village Shoe Service becomes a Authorized Birkenstock Repair Shop. Keep those Birks coming!
