GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Garrett and Gordon Tam are still running the business Gordon's father Joseph established after emigrating to Hawaii from mainland China. The shop on 12th Avenue in Kaimuki is the fourth location of Tam's Shoe Repair and is one of the Albert Y. Tam (no relation) building's original tenants, having been there for 52 years.
If the shoe fits...
Helping others pound
the pavement provides
a road to success for
Tam's Shoe Repair
Joseph W.S. Tam escaped communist China as a teenager and set up a shoe repair business in Hawaii. Neither his son nor his grandson know what year that was but they have continued the elder Tam's legacy.
Perfect fit
Tam's Shoe Repair:
Location: 1145 A 12th Ave. in Kaimuki.
Open for business: From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Call: 737-1715
It is a shoe repair shop that doesn't issue numbered tickets for each job it receives.
"Before, we used ticket stubs, but after awhile the ticket stub doesn't come back," said Joseph's grandson Garrett.
"It's all by last name," he said. In the case of surnames common in Hawaii, "Chings, Lees or Wongs, we ask for an initial. We know who they are. We pretty much just know where everything is," Garrett said. The 52-year-old shop has been operating right where it is longer than his 31 years of life.
Tam's Shoe Repair started out at Wheeler Field, moved downtown and then into Kaimuki. From Koko Head Avenue the shop moved to its present spot on 12th Avenue, where it was among the original tenants of the Albert Y. Tam building. Any relationship is strictly calabash, not blood, said the third-generation shopkeeper.
Joseph ran the store and started teaching his eldest son Gordon to help out after classes let out from St. Paul's Day School and then Liliuokalani Elementary. Gordon started learning the trade at age 10.
Garrett underwent similar career training at the same age.
"He started off polishing shoes outside, doing some easy things," Gordon said. As he grew older, father showed son how to use the machines and do more around the shop. "The same way how I learned this too, from my father."
Gordon, however, had his sights set on a different career path. He studied aircraft mechanics at Honolulu Community College and worked at small air taxi companies. He worked at Aloha Airlines for 32 years until his retirement as a manager 5 years ago. But his full-time career didn't get him off the hook from toiling in the family business. He worked in the shop part-time and took on more hours and responsibility when his father suffered a stroke.
Gordon would work the swing shift or graveyard shift at Aloha and arrange his hours at the shop accordingly.
"Work just stacked up," in spite of Gordon's efforts.
"We used to come in on Sundays. That's family day. We get everybody, my son, my wife (La Verne) and I to try to catch up on the work, but it never ends," he said.
Gordon burned the candle at both ends for 15 years. "They were difficult years, but I got used to it," he said.
Joseph did what he could, finally retiring when he was in his 70s. In the mid 1990s, the family patriarch died one day shy of his 88th birthday.
Gordon and his wife, now 60, are not ready to retire. La Verne Tam has a government job during the day and handles the books and does some sewing and other repairs at the shop.
Garrett also has outside employment -- in a warehouse operation he declined to name -- but manning the store is his full-time gig. His other work experience includes stints at Champs Sports in Kahala Mall and at Mongolian Bar-B-Que on 12th Avenue, as a cook and waiter.
Despite the avocations, the Tams shine at shoe repair, according to 15-year customer Denby Fawcett. A reporter at KITV, she is on her feet for hours every day.
"They are craftsmen, proud of their craft," she said. "Gordon made one pair of shoes I loved, some Gucci flats, perfect for a news reporter, last for more than 10 years.
"Gordon and Garrett make my expensive shoes seem like bargains because they can keep them attractive for so long," Fawcett said.
Fawcett's husband, MidWeek columnist Bob Jones, also is a customer as are some of her KITV co-workers, including Jill Kuramoto and Catherine Cruz. In addition to celebrities, regular folks with regular shoes and luggage come in from neighbor islands for repairs
Among the more unusual items they've been asked to repair are saddles, bridles and leather skirts and jackets.
"A lot of people take them to tailors, but their needles are not heavy-duty enough," said Garrett. The Tams have a very old, still functioning Singer sewing machine operated by a foot pedal that fits the bill. "We have some pretty old, antique kind of machines," said Garrett.
The shoe repair business has its busy seasons, said Garrett.
"Mostly right when school is over, between May through July, because it's summer time so a lot of people want to go on trips." The holiday season also is busy, "because of all the parties coming up."
Shoe repair wasn't Gordon's first choice, but as Joseph's first-born son, carrying on the family business was his duty, he said. His siblings, an older sister and a younger brother and sister, each have or have retired from government jobs. Garrett is Gordon and La Verne's only child, but his career choice was just that, a choice. Shoe repair captured his interest, Gordon said.
Father and son understand a relatively few family businesses last after the third generation.
Nothing firm is established as far as the company's succession and Garrett is single. "I have lots of time to work on that," he laughed.
