Not since the late 1980s has there been a local store dedicated exclusively to selling shoes. That changed in April with the opening in downtown Newberg of Shoemates Footwear and Repair.
The 600 E. First St. business is an offshoot of the original Shoemate’s location opened in McMinnville in 2013. Owner Tim McDaniel saw a need in both towns for a shoe store. When space became available, he acted.
“I was the property manager for the building (in McMinnville) … when it needed a tenant,” he said in an email. “There had previously been footwear stores in both Newberg and McMinnville, and it seemed like there was something missing without one. It never dawned on me that it would either work or not work. We just did it.”
McNeil jumped into the shoe store business with both feet, despite having no experience in the field.
“My background in retail was not in footwear; it was in agribusiness and then landscape architecture,” he said. “When I was a kid, my grandmother had a small dress shop that she owned/operated called the Mode O’ Day. I watched her selling retail by simply being there and serving people. I go about things just as she would.”