Dan Lentz replaces a rubber sole on a shoe at Roy’s Shoe Shop in Portland on March 6, 2025. The shop has been open for 102 years and is owned by Lentz, a second-generation cobbler, and his son Ryan Lentz. Dan’s daughter Liz Lentz works alongside them as well. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

It seemed inevitable that Dan Lentz would become a cobbler.

At 12, his first job was shining shoes at Roy’s Shoe Shop in Portland, where his father was a cobbler. It turns out carrying on the cobbling tradition — and working in the little shop on Stevens Avenue where families once came to buy new shoes and get their old ones fixed up — is the only job he ever wanted.

Lentz, 59, now works alongside his own children, Ryan and Liz, who have been cobbling for years. They are among the last half-dozen cobblers working in Maine.

But despite what many would describe as a quickly dying industry, Roy’s Shoe Shop is as busy as it’s ever been.

People from all over the Portland area drop off shoes and bags for repair. Some drive from hours away and other customers even mail in their shoes from out of state. The shoes waiting to be repaired sit in cardboard boxes around the shop, a paper repair ticket tied to each pair. Right now, the Lentzes have four months’ worth of work lined up.

Shoes line the walls at Roy’s Shoe Shop in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Maine, with a rich history of shoe manufacturing, was a natural fit for cobblers who bought scraps of leftover material from factories. The high-quality shoes churned out in factories in Lewiston-Auburn, Dexter and other mill towns were worth fixing, and many with frugal Yankee sensibilities valued the service cobblers provided.

Decades ago, there were 12 cobblers in downtown Portland alone, with others scattered across southern Maine. In the early 1940s, there were 32 cobblers working in the Lewiston-Auburn area. Fifty years later, there were two.

Over the years, repair shops closed as cobblers retired and fewer people sought out repair for shoes that were increasingly mass-produced overseas using cheaper materials.

A Portland Press Herald article from 1974 about a shortage of cobblers hangs on the wall at Roy’s Shoe Shop in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

There are now only a handful of shoe repair shops remaining across Maine, including businesses in Portland, South Portland, Lisbon and Augusta. At least two of those are run by cobblers who plan to put down their tools and retire in the next few years.

Liz Lentz, 24, still sees a future for cobblers, especially in Portland, where there is a thriving secondhand and vintage market and people interested in restoring older shoes.

“This is a service that kind of goes against all of what we’re used to with fast fashion and how things can arrive at your door within three days or so,” she said. “But there’s a beauty in that. There’s a beauty in the patience of waiting a few months to have your items totally hand-restored and come back — most of the time even better quality than they were before.”

THE LAST COBBLERS

Tom LaCasse’s first job was shining shoes in his dad’s shop in Skowhegan, but he had no intention of growing up to be a cobbler. After some time in college, he knew he wanted to work with his hands and thought he would enjoy working for himself. So when an opportunity came along to work, and eventually take over, a shoe repair shop in Augusta, he jumped on it. He came to enjoy the work and, more than anything, chatting with his customers.

LaCasse has owned Tom Finn Shoe Repair since 1984 and is the only cobbler in Augusta, where there was once a high demand for shoe repair among the lawyers, lobbyists and legislators who worked there. Now 66, he is planning to retire in the next three years. There’s no one to take over.

When he first came to work in Augusta, there were two other cobblers in town. There were also shops in Bangor, Belfast, Bath, Brunswick and Skowhegan, where his older brother took over from their father. The shops closed when the cobblers retired, but not because there was a shortage of customers, LaCasse said.

“It always made me a little sad. I was always disappointed that they could never find anybody else to do it,” said LaCasse, who still sews on the Singer machine his father and brother used before him.

Like LaCasse, Steve Foss didn’t set out to become a cobbler.

Steve Foss of Maine Shoe Repair sews a zipper into place on a boot using his 102-year-old Singer sewing machine. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

After serving in the Peace Corps, Foss moved to South Portland with his wife in the early 1980s and became friends with a man who owned a shoe repair shop on Broadway. When he grew tired of selling furniture, Foss went to work in the shoe shop and eventually took over when the owner retired. He moved Maine Shoe Repair to a converted garage next to his house more than 20 years ago.

Nearly every inch of the workshop is taken up by shoes and bags waiting to be repaired and the machinery Foss uses to do it. His 102-year-old Singer sewing machine sits near a workbench covered with tools, shoes and scraps of rubber and leather. He has about a month of work lined up and has been turning some customers away as he works his way toward semi-retirement.

Foss, 69, plans to cut back his hours later this spring and reduce his customer list down to about 100 of his favorites. He said it’s hard to think about winding down a business he spent so much time building, but he’s looking forward to spending more time with his wife, children and 10 grandchildren.

“It’s been a good business,” he said. “But it’s not a job young people think of growing up because most people at that age don’t even realize you can get your shoes fixed.”

CHANGES IN BUSINESS  

When Paul Rowland became a cobbler in the 1980s, the business was already in hard decline. The cobblers still around were holdovers from the 1940s and ’50s, when a surge of people got into the business.

“You could get into the business very inexpensively at a time when there was still a very thrift-oriented culture and shortage brought on by the Depression and war years,” he said.

Rowland set up shop in Westbrook, working for three decades in a red trailer before moving Paul’s Shoe Repair to Lisbon in 2020.

“I used to joke that my big advantage was that I was going to outlive my competitors,” said Rowland, now 65.

Over the years, cobblers have faced a number of challenges, including the shift of manufacturing overseas, Rowland said. It’s become harder, and costs a lot more, to get supplies to repair shoes. And the cost of entering into the business is daunting, he said. Equipment and tools cost thousands of dollars and overhead expenses add up quickly.

“Realistically, as things stand now, it doesn’t look viable for another generation to run this business the way I’ve done it for 30 years,” he said, adding that he’s “marginally hopeful” there is a future for cobblers.

But Rowland doesn’t plan to retire soon.

“I’m really grateful for the life I’ve had and that I can continue to do it as long as my fingers are on my hands,” he said.

A FUTURE IN SHOES

Walking into Roy’s Shoe Shop — the oldest operating shoe repair shop in Maine — feels like stepping back in time. The shop, founded by George Roy Sr. in 1923, moved to its current spot on Stevens Avenue in 1941. Stephen Lentz, who trained under George Roy Jr., eventually bought the shop and both of his sons followed him.

A customer enters Roy’s Shoe Shop in Portland on Thursday. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Now the second and third generation of Lentz cobblers use some of the same machines Stephen Lentz did. Their shop looks much the same as it did decades ago, with tools and shoes scattered across the worn workbench and stacks of new soles tucked into cubbyholes above it. Even the phone number remains the same as it has since the beginning.

Like their father, Ryan and Liz Lentz started in the business by shining shoes after school. Ryan Lentz, 31, now owns the shop with his dad and specializes in stitching, patching and zippers. Liz Lentz handles shining, custom coloring and customer service.

“It’s like putting together a puzzle. It’s a bit of brain work, but it’s also fun and every time I pick up a new item, it’s something different,” Ryan Lentz said, as he worked on shaping a length of leather to extend a vintage belt too short for its owner.

Liz Lentz works alongside her father, Dan. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

Dan Lentz — who calls his kids “the best crew I’ve ever had” — is glad to see the tradition carry on into another generation.

Customers often tell Ryan Lentz that he can never close, and he hopes he’ll never have to.

“All I can do is pick up the next shoe and fix it and keep going,” he said. “I would love for this place to keep going and going.”