A lot has happened since Gregg Palmer opened the Grand Junction location of Brown’s Shoe Fit Company, 425 Main St., in 1980.
Retail outlets like Palmer’s have been the subject of much consternation amid the pandemic as well as the growth of the online marketplace. Over the past 41 years, the store has weathered many difficulties, received some facelifts, and Palmer entered politics and served as mayor for a period. Yet, the community still embraces him and the store, even after all of these years.
“It’s still such a supportive area. It’s gratifying to see so many people make a point to buy local,” Palmer said. “It’s still a blue-collar town, and it is still full of opportunities if you work for it.”
Palmer grew up in Loveland and soon fell in love with retail business. He operates a few Brown’s Shoe Fit locations, including one in Durango.
He wanted the freedom of being his own boss, so he pursued owning retail stores. In 1980, he opened the Grand Junction Main Street staple and almost immediately faced two hurdles.
“That was right at the time when the Mesa Mall opened and started taking a lot of customers,” he said. “Not long after that, Exxon pulled out of the area. There was a lot of concern if we could pull it off.”
The bust of Exxon abandoning its oil shale operation and that impact rippled all through the Western Slope.
But Palmer said his store had an advantage being a new company. It was still building its customer base, so it didn’t lose many due to the mass exodus after the pullout.
Things settled afterward, and Brown’s Shoe Fit built a reputation of good customer service and products with the community. In the mid-1990s, Palmer’s presence, such as his work with the Lions Club, cemented the impact of the store and meaning to the community.
That was evident when he made his foray into politics in the mid-1990s.
“I would have people come in who would first tell me, ‘I really don’t agree with you on this position. Also, do you have this shoe in a size eight?’ ” Palmer said. “That told me that they still trusted and valued us.”
Around the turn of the century was when longtime employees Kelly Wampler and Michael Gray joined Brown’s Shoe Fit. Both had experience working in the shoe business before and applied to Brown’s Shoe Fit to look for a change in scenery.
Though the job was the same, the experience was unlike their previous ones.
“Here, we’re fitting people and talking about shoes instead of just saying, ‘Here’s your shoe,’ ” Gray said. “It’s a lot more personal here.”
Wampler agreed.
She recalled one customer whom she has known since early in her tenure.
“She comes in from out of town a couple of times a year. Now she knows my family, my kids, everything,” Wampler said. “There’s all sorts of customers we know that well. They’ll call in to find out what time our shifts are and rearrange their schedule to come in while we’re working.”
That customer-service relationship helped Brown’s Shoe Fit survive the third major issue in its history — the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like other business owners, Palmer never imagined shutting the store down in April and May 2020.
When the state began to reopen, Brown’s Shoe Fit was then struggling to fill shelves because of disruptions in the supply line.
“I would call a supplier and ask for 80 pairs and they’d tell me, ‘I can give you six,’ ” Palmer said. “I was facing this in Durango, and locations in Oregon and California.”
The difference between Grand Junction and his other locations, though, is the amount of community support. People in Mesa County seem to make a more concerted effort to shop local, he said.
Part of that is probably because of the lower COVID-19 case numbers, he said, but it’s also on-brand for his neighbors.
“It confirmed what I already knew about the community,” Palmer said. “That it’s a very giving one. They help each other however they can.”
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Brown Shoe Fit owner credits community for decades in business - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
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