The Greek cobbler

Put yourself in Christos Soillis’s shoes.

Walking down Massachussetts Avenue in the heart of Harvard Square, one inevitably passes all the commonalities of a commercial center of a town. The aorta of Cambridge pulsates with activity as people check the menus outside of restaurants, duck into boutiques, and pause to watch street artists trying to earn a buck. Then, amidst the modern bustle, you are halted to a jarring stop as you stumble upon Felix Shoe Repair, and you think you’ve just fallen into a wormhole.

Sitting in the window of the tiny shop is cobbler and sole proprietor of Felix Shoe Repair, Christos Soillis. He is mending the seam of a black cherry leather boot with the inattentive meticulousness of someone who is so experienced in his craft the machines seem to be unconscious extensions of his hands. The Singer sewing machine at which he sits is about 80 years old, according to Soillis- five years his elder. Most of the other hardware in the shop- sanders, buffers, vices, other sewing machines- is not far behind in age or use.

From the unorthodox, curved wooden window frames on the shop’s exterior to the man working inside, Felix Shoe Repair is of a bygone era, when Nike was still a Greek god and Puma a jungle cat.

He is wearing leather shoes himself- tasseled loafers that are rhythmically pumping the iron-lattice foot pedal to keep the bobbin at a steady pace. His polish-stained workman’s apron reaches just below his knees, swaying with the motion in his calves that keeps the bobbin employed. Soillis’s sturdy, barely five-foot frame is in a comfortable hunch; his arms steady but fingers nimble. It is a position he has known his whole life.

Looking down, aloofly focused on the boot, the 75 year-old Soillis showcases a shiny bald spot, and a peripheral hairline that grows like an Olympic olive wreath around his head. A pair of brass-rimmed glasses dangles on the edge of his strong Grecian nose, as he effortlessly makes sure every stitch is exact.

I walk in and introduce myself. The first thing he says to me is, “You Armenian? I am Greek! We are friends, look out for each other,” in a thick accent that sounds like he came to America yesterday, and not in 1963. And thus is the bud of a beautiful friendship.

Soillis began working as an apprentice cobbler at age eleven in his hometown of Logganiko, Greece, a small village near Sparta. After several unsuccessful attempts to open his own shoe repair shop in Greece, Soillis heeded the advice of his father, who had been to America.

“Son, I tell you, in the U.S. your foundation is built from here to there,” Soillis says, quoting his father as he points from his feet to a far off undefined point. “In U.S. you start out right for a good future.”

Soillis’s father traveled to America alone to work from 1907 to 1919. He sold fruit from a pushcart, earning pennies a day until he befriended a well-connected Irishman in Boston. The Irishman got him a job as a foreman at General Electric and in 12 years, Soillis Sr. returned to Greece a rich man with over $2,500 in his pocket- the equivalent of about $31,000 today.

“My father put his money in the bank in Greece and boom, the Depression hit. Just like that we were broke again,” Soillis said.

The first thing Soillis remembers noticing when he immigrated to Boston in 1963 was how formally everyone dressed. He says, “I asked Felix’s son, why everyone so dressed up? And he pointed to the gate that goes onto [Harvard’s] campus.

“‘Constantine must come through this gate before he becomes king.’

“It sound much better in Greek, but he meant that these are the people who hold the wheel to control the world.”

Entering Felix Shoe Repair is more like stepping into your grandfather’s garage than a modern commercial business. An organized mess, stacks of finished shoes in bags line an entire wall waiting to be picked up. Polishes, buffers, conditioners, different-colored stains, shoehorns, sole replacements, and other shoe care items are modestly on display; unadvertised hidden treasures. Scores of leather sandals and belts, made by Soillis, hang nearest the windows. The smells of the polishes, glues and conditioners are strong but not overwhelming, giving the shop a distinct blue-collar scent. When Soillis is not at work at his machinery, the sounds of AM news radio are loud enough that anyone trying to communicate in the small shop must raise their voice to communicate, especially with the elderly Soillis.

            One sound you will not hear in Felix Shoe Repair is the ring of a telephone.

            “If people want their shoes repaired, they can come in and ask me questions and do business,” Soillis says. His business strategies are as quaint as his craft; no telephone, no website, no Twitter account. Soillis believes in the value of personal, old-world business. To him, Harvard Square is like a village.

Some passersby pop in and greet him by name, others ask about a cold he’s been nursing for a few weeks. Conducting business without personal relationships is not something Soillis wants any part in.

            “Christos Soillis is important to our community because of the spirit of independence and reliability he brings,” Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association said in an interview with The 411 Around Boston. “He brings people coffee and baklava, and sometimes baskets of tomatoes and fresh peaches which he grows in his garden.”

            Doing business with Soillis is more like enlisting the help of a trustworthy old friend, one who won’t lessen the blow when giving harsh advice. If you show him a pair of shoes that are past the point of repair, you can expect to receive a stern, accented lecture about why and how you should take better care of future pairs. He will often turn potential customers away if he doesn’t think he can do a good enough job on their shoes. It is clear that Soillis is not just in this business for the money- he has a genuine passion for quality of the shoes that are walked around Harvard Square.

One of my many observations in the shop was an exchange between Soillis and a college-aged woman with a pair of calf-high leather boots.

           

           “Is there any way you could fix the heels on these?” the woman asked, showing Soillis the damage. 

Peering down his nose through his half moon, brass-rimmed spectacles, Soillis answers, “Yes I can, but not cheap. $25 each heel. Go to other shoe repairs, ask price, take time and think about it. Come back if you want.”

Soillis believes that you only need two things to be successful in America: honesty and health.

“Sometimes I think I’m the richest man in the world. I’m well, I have my store, and people do business with me because we have good relationships. I do honest business with them.”

Beginning work at age 11, Soillis’s work ethic and overall view on economics are simple yet profound. “If you’re willing to sweat, you have a dollar- you respect that dollar, and you help other people because you can with that dollar,” Soillis says.

And, having grown up poor, he says he knows the value of that dollar. “I am the cheapest person you know,” says Soillis. “I grew up very, very poor. I come to America with nothing, and I make something. I left Greece with short pants and a thousand patches, now I own this store.” The original Felix opened shop in Harvard Square in 1909, and Soillis bought it from his grandson in 1969.

“Back when I first came here, there were seven shoe repair shops on these blocks,” he said. “This was before rubber shoes. Everyone went to shoe repair shop, people got their shoes polished two, three times a week.”

Soillis estimates that nowadays, about 99 percent of people wear “rubber shoes,” sneakers or cheap boots that have no prospect of repair. Accordingly, business is not as good as it used to be for anyone in the shoe repair trade. Although Keds invented the first mass-produced, rubber-soled sneaker at the turn of the 20^th century, it was not until about thirty years ago that it became the norm in America footwear.

Sneakers were a godsend to shoe manufacturers; not only are they much cheaper to produce than their stitched leather predecessors, they are also impossible to repair- meaning once they show signs of wear, its time to buy a new pair.

“Business is not good anymore, but it is enough for me. It is all I know, I love to do it, and I only have myself to support,” Soillis says. He explains that if he still had a family and kids to support, there’s no way he could make it in the cobbling business anymore. His wife Maria passed away in 2010, leaving just Soillis and his shoe repair shop.

“I keep myself busy and spend a lot of time here, talking with customers and the people I know here,” Soillis says.

To his regulars, Soillis is a shoe angel.

Jessica Donner, a lawyer in Boston, says she’s been going to Felix Shoe Repair for years.

“Christos is a miracle worker,” she says. “I’ve brought him the most disastrous, scuffed shoes, or with seams falling apart, and Christos has fixed them. He almost makes your shoes look better than they did when they were new.”

Those who know him love him for his craftsmanship, but some newcomers may find his no-nonsense disposition slightly abrasive. His answers are quick and definite; he needs no time to consider an answer. In his 64 years of shoe repair, he’s heard it all.

For example, while I am interviewing Soillis, a man comes into Felix Shoe Repair, suede hat in hand and asks his how to get a spot out.

His attention on a men’s dress shoe, Soillis never looks up at the man. He continues hammering nails into the heel buffer on the shoe that is elevated upside down on a crude metal rod for resistance.

 “Won’t come out, buy new hat,” Soillis responds without skipping a nonchalant, sure-striking beat with his hammer. Every nail is hammered perfectly in place. Throughout the day, I wonder when was the last time he missed. By my estimation, not since he’s been running Felix Shoe Repair.

No further words are exchanged. The man walks out insulted. 

Later the same day, another customer who seems to have been to Soillis before but is not necessarily on a first name basis, walks in to pick up a finished pair of shoes. He is eating a quick-melting cup of ice cream from the JP Lick’s two doors down. Standing at the counter while Soillis tries to match his ticket to the Mount Everest of shoes awaiting pickup, the man clumsily drips some of his ice cream on the floor. He apologizes and scrambles for something to wipe it up. Soillis is unfazed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll clean it later! This shoe repair shop, not Whole Foods,” he wryly jokes.

After 64 years of dexterous labor in shoe repair, Soillis is starting to feel its effects. He thrusts his hands forward and I notice the almost non-existent finger nails on his sausage-like fingers that, to me, are ten little miracles for having eluded arthritis this long. Then he turns his hands over and directs my attention to the thumb areas on his calloused palms. They are incredibly swollen, as if he shoved two fluffy spanakopitas under his skin.

“Sometimes I can’t sleep my hands hurt so bad,” Soillis says, but he assures me he will keep working until he no longer is physically able.

Times have changed since the 1960s- Harvard now admits women, Massachusetts Avenue is lined with Priuses instead of Fairlanes, Bass Weejuns have made way for Air Force Ones- but through the years, Christos Soillis and Felix Shoe Repair have defied the changes of the times, and remain an integral part of the Harvard Square community.