“Sure, ma’am! We can fix it, ma’am!” Whether you want new soles for a pair of well-worn boots, the alternative of a tog bag zip, hand-stitching to a leather-based pouf, even new faucets to your baby’s faucet sneakers – on the shoe restore store, Cobblers, in Northcliff Junction, Johannesburg, you’ll invariably get the “can do” reply to all of your inquiries.
The proprietor right here is Rashida Hassam. Ably assisted by fellow cobbler Norman Teefu within the workshop, and husband Essop (higher often called Jeff) – who, amongst different issues, providers stitching machines and cuts or replaces keys – this enterprising girl has established herself as a formidable entrepreneur, with an admirable service ethic, for the previous 40 years.
Praises sung on Google and group discussion groups attest to this.
- “A fantastic job on my boots that no one else could fix.”
- “Great owners who know their business.”
- “Shoe repairs and handbag alterations, all very well done. Inexpensive, too.”
- “Exceptional service, always!”
- “Very knowledgeable and always helpful.”
Those are just a few of the opinions. Not stunning, due to this fact, that one of the smallest retailers within the centre, Cobblers, is additionally one of the busiest.
Filled to the brim with sneakers, luggage, packing containers, buckles, leather-based gadgets, machines, you identify itoften prospects should patiently wait their flip to be served. But they accomplish that fortunately, realizing will probably be value their whereas.
Rashida began out in her youth with a stint of 13 years at a motor agency in downtown Johannesburg, primarily as an bill clerk. But she determined to stop when the couple’s second baby, Fatima, was born in 1978 with a hare lip and cleft palate.
“The doctors told me that she would have to undergo a series of operations, so I decided to stay home to tend my daughter,” she says. “However, having been homebound for two years, I realised that I simply am not a stay-at-home spouse, that I sorely missed communicating with people. So, I asked my husband to buy me a small business.”
This led them to a newspaper commercial promoting a store that will grow to be Cobblers – then often called Roma Heel Bar in Northcliff.
“I took out a small bond on our house in Lenasia and bought the shop in 1982,” Hassam recollects.
She not solely needed to be taught the artwork of shoe making, from scratch, however needed to construct up a clientele. It occurred “not by advertising, but by word of mouth,” she says. She grew to become a buddy and confidante to many.
“Many women told me about their husbands and men about their wives. I never commented, I just listened,” she chuckles.
Tellingly, proper from the outset, Hassam has all the time had at the very least one deaf cobbler in her make use of.
“I’ve trained many deaf people and to this day, the first deaf cobbler, Victor, from time to time still comes in to help out.”
It has been engaged on the assorted sorts of dancing sneakers – faucet sneakers, ballroom dancing sneakers, Irish dancing sneakers – she has discovered most rewarding.
In addition, faculties are staunch Cobblers supporters, usually presenting her with a load of choir or sports activities luggage which must be mounted urgently. At instances a frightening problem, she stresses.
And sure, infrequently, she does come throughout a tough buyer who vows to by no means set foot on this store once more. However, a couple of months later, they’re again.
Post Covid, Cobblers is again on monitor and at 72 years of age, quitting is nowhere on Hassam’s radar.
“Age is all in the mind,” she muses. Like with good sneakers.
– information@citizen.co.za
