Right-Way Shoe Repair

I’ve brought in a few pairs of shoes and he repaired them excellent. Some expensive shoes were repaired to almost new condition. Great work. My only comment is that he sometimes is not very friendly in terms of greeting customers and notifying customers he will be with them soon. Also, on my first time there I didn’t know about the «lost ticket» fee. I came in without it and had to come back another day without it. It was my fault, but he should have let it go for a first time customer. (Or maybe he should just have an organization system by last name, rather than ticket number.)

I have nothing but great words for this place. I’ve gotten several pairs of shoes and boots re-​heeled. The price has been really reasonable and they do quality work. I just dropped off my favorite pair of suede boots, whose heels were beat to hell. The price? $ 25! Yes, please!
They do seem to prefer cash so I try to have that on hand when I’m dropping my shoes off. I’m very happy with the work I’ve had done here and they are generally pretty friendly in our brief interactions. They do seem slightly disorganized (even with a ticket, they have to search around in a couple of places before locating your shoes). But, they haven’t ever lost any of my shoes and I haven’t ever come in without my ticket so all is good with us.

I just had an absolutely terrible experience with this business. I want to warn other customers that after years of patronizing and recommending Right-​Way to others, I was treated horribly and lied to. My college age daughter had three pairs of boots repaired by them over her winter break. When she picked them up, ticket in hand, she paid and gave them the ticket but left one bag with a pair of her boots behind on the counter. Thus, when I returned to retrieve the forgotten pair I didn’t have the ticket. My daughter returned to college over the weekend so I went to retrieve the boots for her. The first time I went in the men working there denied having any recollection of the knee high black $ 500.00 pair of boots. I left very upset but returned the next day with proof. This time my daughter’s boots were visible in the shop but the workers still would not give them to me «without the ticket.» They were rude, unpleasant, lied to me the first day, and caused me great upset the second. I demanded my property and left very angry. I believe someone working there had hoped to keep those expensive boots for themselves. Please beware of Right-​Way, they are THE WRONG WAY to repair your shoes and boots.

I shopped around extensively in the East Bay to find a place to get my Birkenstocks resoled (cork and rubber). This place offered the best price in conjunction with turnaround time, so I brought them my shoes. The folks are very nice and did a great and timely job with the re sole (this is six or so months later and I’ve had no issues).
Two stars taken away because of the finish work, however. I brought in maroon colored shoes with a semi oiled, almost suede finish. The man in the back polished them to a medium shine before I picked them up. His polish and the polishing machine darkened my shoes to a dark brown color (not at all red anymore on first glance) and a glossy finish. They ended up looking like totally different shoes, a different color, different texture, different finish, everything. He didn’t ask me before he polished them. I work with leather myself and it’s standard to test polish in a discrete place before using to check for color changes — I have no idea why they thought it was okay to polish both of my shoes, seeing how intense the change in color and texture was, without asking me. I let it go at the time because I was hoping that after a couple months of use they would wear back to their normal color and texture, but that hasn’t happened and they’re still a muddy brown color and the leather is slicked to a shine. Very upsetting — be sure to watch out for this!

This place is a disaster. The customer is always wrong. No room for arbitration for miscommunications. Also prices are too high. Customer service is close to zero. Too bad about thus place. We need a good shoe repair shop in this part of Rock Ridge.

I really wish I had read these reviews before I made the terrible choice of using this place. This is a really a poorly run shop, and the owner could give a crap about you or your shoes. I brought in 3 pairs, paid 140 bucks in cash, and took my shoes home after waiting two weeks for them to be done. Did I mention that they charge a fortune, and only accept cash? Attention IRS! I guess I was in a «it seems like a small, family run business and I would really like to support that» mode. If these guys are a family, it’s on the order of the Sopranos. One pair of my husbands shoes cost 70 bucks to resole. The soles started to peel back and fall off after about 5 days. When I brought them back in, total attitude from the guy who first insisted there was no manager or owner, and then that he was the manager or owner. Acted like he doing me a favor to fix what was already supposed to be fixed. When I told him he charged me 70 bucks for them, he denied it. Even he could not believe that he had the audacity to charge so much! When I told him I wasn’t happy with the service, having to bring the shoes back, and having to wait again for them, he literally sneered and laughed at me. He is well practiced, I think this happens all the time. When I picked them up after he had fixed them again, I asked to keep the receipt as last time they didn’t give me mine back. He seemed deeply insulted, and grumbled «I don’t guarantee our work forever.» Whatever dude. You don’t stand behind your work at all. Maybe an apology to a customer is in order sometimes. Maybe you have been breathing in those shoe chemical fumes for too long, because you sure don’t seem like you are playing with a full deck to me. The other two pairs of shoes were repaired in a mediocre fashion, and I’m waiting for them to fall apart.

After they lost my shoes I dropped off the week prior, I vowed never to return. They eventually called me back 2 days later and had found my shoes. They did not offer to reimburse me the $ I PRE-​PAID for my shoes. I just wanted to leave. 10-​months later, I needed new heels and minor sewing repair on my boots (it was $ 45!!), but I was into the convenience. I came the following week to pick them up and they provided them in a bag, but when I returned home – they didn’t even do the work. I went right back and showed them and they looked and said «Oh, yea, sorry… they’ll be ready next week» Ridiculous. Also: I don’t like that they use all those plastic bags to put shoes in, so one time I brought my shoes in a canvas bag and they returned my shoes in 3 different plastic bags… and couldn’t find my canvas bag. So much for recycling. They don’t take their work seriously, you walk in and they barely acknowledge you, they have lost my shoes once and then forgot to do the work the second time. I promise, promise never to return and I suggest the same to you.

This place does all sorts of things — they fix zippers on bags, repair soles, re-​heel boots, makes old leather shoes look like new… for the price of a new pair of shoes.
It’s $ 60 to shine 3 pairs of shoes (no re-​soling, just cleaning up). They request cash and grumble if you hand over a credit card, but they’re a nice bunch. You also have to pay up front before services are even rendered, which seems sketchy — what if they do a bad job, or lose my shoes? I prefer to pay for something after getting what I paid for, if you know what I’m sayin’. They DO accept a 50% deposit if you flinch at the up-​front costs (so you only pay for half of the services you haven’t yet received. Yay!)
Don’t lose your ticket — they charge for that, too!

$ 57 to get heels and soles replaced on a pair of women’s leather boots! Pretty darn pricey…
And then to add salt to the wound they charge you $ 2 if you forget your ticket because they say it takes extra time to find the bag containing your items. They were not very friendly about it when I complained about the extra fees. It certainly did not take them much time to locate my boots.
I am shopping around for another shoe repair shop.

They have always done a solid job on resoling and reheeling my shoes and boots, including some pricey ones (Fry’s and Coclicos). They are a little disorganized and one time took a good twenty minutes to locate my shoes– they also have no computer system for tracking anything which always makes me a bit anxious. Otherwise no complaints, and when I occasionally try somewhere new I always regret it and come back here– they just always do a good solid job.

This place is terrible! I brought in my previously-​hot ostrich embossed boots to them to have them cleaned. When I went to pick them up today, it looked like someone had drawn on black dots where the natural looking spots used to be. And guess what, it turned out someone had! Apparently, after using a leather cleaner on them, they decided to pick up a sharpie and enhance the dots where they thought they looked lightened. What a ridiculous idea and basically destroying my $ 800 boots.
Not to mention that the young guy behind the counter was extremely rude about it, saying that he would have to talk to the guy who cleaned them. However I understand Spanish and heard that the guy who cleaned them was right there. He said the owner would call me, which he did, but when I spoke to him, he was defensive instead of apologetic and told me that what he did was better than the way they were before, and that I shouldn’t «expect miracles». Yes, expecting the miracle of a professional job from them!
Not ever going back and recommend that you steer clear, too.

I should have read the reviews before bringing my prized nude leather wedges here.
I had a spot on the leather strap of my left shoe that needed to be removed. They ended up spraying the entire shoe with some kind of leather cleaner, drenching the entire shoe, as opposed to working out the one spot.
The liquid discolored the leather and made it bubble. I now have a left shoe that is a different color than the right shoe. They still charged me $ 20 for a terrible piece of work.
That same visit, I gave them my watch to sew back on the leather strap (again, I should have read the reviews first). I asked them to sew it. They ended up gluing it. I could have done that and saved myself $ 10.
Will not be coming back.

I just came back from there! They are the most dishonest people that I’ve had the misfortune to meet.
I had five pairs of shoes we agreed on the job and price– the man wanted cash up fron but I declined. I came to pic up my shoes and they were not as agreed plus the owner wanted more money in spite of what it said on the ticket!!! Shameful.
I will never do business with them again and will tell all my friends to stay away from this place.

Wow, am I surprised. I couldn’t believe it today when I went to pick up my 3 pairs of shoes, dropped of Wed. for pick-​up today. I couldn’t find my claim ticket so had to pay another $ 2, this for $ 96 repair on 2 pairs, polish on 1, paid up front, cash. I asked the man if he would wave the $ 2 charge given the $ 96 tab and that I had been a customer for years (this based on the convenience not the quality of work), had always had my claim ticket, always paid in cash up front. The man was so very sour, but for the first time in the years that I have been going there, he smiled — at my astonishment that over a $ 2 lost ticket charge he would loose my business. I don’t care, I don’t care he said, with such glee. Amazing. —-I won’t be back. Margaret B.

I have brought this place 4 pairs of shoes and 2 of them are not what any reasonable person would consider repaired.
One of the shoes I brought in had a broken heel. They «fixed» it and the heel immediately broke off again the next time I wore it, revealing that they had simply glued it on with some rubber cement. Clearly, this is not worth $ 45.
The last pair I brought in needed new tips on the heels. They were going to charge me $ 40 for this, which is outrageous. In fact, they first told me it would be $ 49 and I said, «nevermind, I’ll just get a new pair of shoes.» Then, they came down to $ 40 and I mistakenly made a deal. They require $ 20 upfront, so I paid and came back a week later. They put new tips on them that completely clashed with my shoes. I said there was no way I was going to pay them $ 40 for ruining these shoes and told them to keep the shoes and my deposit — I wasn’t giving them an extra $ 20 for shoes I would no longer consider wearing.
The owner then said, «I can dye them a matching color.» If he could have done that, why didn’t he do it in the first place? He said to wait 10 minutes and I did. Waiting there, I saw he has far more unhappy customers than happy ones. He was charging a man $ 75 for repairs on a pair of boots. He came in and the boots were not ready… they had forgotten about them. The owner told him they would be ready in 10 minutes. The man was furious that a 10 minute job cost him $ 75 and I would have been, too.
When he finished «dying» my heel tips they still did not match the shoes and still look completely cheap and unwearable. I have wasted over $ 85 at this place. I won’t ever go back.

I have had a bag of shoes that needed the heels fixed for a while, so today I was on a mission to get them fixed. I was referred to Right-​Way Shoe Repair by their second location on Piedmont Ave since I wanted the shoes today.
When I arrived to the shop I could tell they were very busy, and this was confirmed when then the gentleman who helped me encouraged me to drop off the shoes and return after I finished running an errand. I was asked to pay for the repairs when I left the shoes — the price to repair the heels was $ 10 a pair.
Overall, the customer service was good and will probably return.

If a picture paints a thousand words …
There really isn’t anything I can add. They made my favorite skins so beautiful I showed the world the hole in my sock as I put them on right there in the store. Heels and soles for 80 clams. At first glance you go hmm that isn’t cheap but think again about materials cost (20) and that it’s a good two hours maybe more to get this done right and knock off rent and insurance and suddenly the man isn’t taking home a pile of cash for the work of an artisan.
My boots look lovely, the new soles and heels are sturdy and of a good quality, the stiching goes. It Goes.
The folks in the shop are friendly and professional, the air smells like leather and polish and reminds me of the shoeman in NY with the display of a wooden man with a hammer that had rained down on the shoe for so long it was almost disappeared. Of that and my father’s closet.
For the nostalgia and the quality craftsmanship, come here.

It used to be worth putting up with the unbelievable disorganization at Rightway because they did pretty good work, but lately their work has gotten horrendously sloppy: men’s dress shoes resoled with thick work soles, women’s flats resoled with glue showing or resoled so poorly that the new soles peel off after a month. They even lost one of my shoes.
If you value your shoes — and why else do you take them to a shoe repair shop? — take them somewhere else.

I had a pair of $ 300 Nordstrom’s loafers that I’d warn every day for the last year. The sole and heel were pretty much destroyed… But when I took it to this place, Cobbler was able to restore the shoe perfect condition and gave me a great deal!

What a fantastic job of re-​soling a very worn pair of Clarks… I could not be happier with the results!
I was a bit hesitant to pay $ 50+ for a new sole, but after shopping around, Right-​Way turned out to be competitive, so on the advice of a friend I took the plunge and I am so glad I did! Right-​Way took a great pair of shoes and made them much better than new. I have used other cobblers that are just ok, but after a great experience here, I will take all my future business to the corner of College and Taft.