CHAPTER · ABOUT
About Village Shoe Service
Village Shoe Service is family-owned and operated — built on Larry Schupbach Jr.'s 26 years of hands-on craft. Larry has won multiple national awards for craftsmanship, including the SSIA Grand Silver Cup, the highest honor in the industry. He is also a Certified Pedorthist (C.Ped.), working alongside doctors to match patients with the orthotics and footwear that relieve foot pain. Every product we carry, every repair we do, is backed by that expertise — and your satisfaction is guaranteed.
Serving Tucker and Atlanta since 1969.
LARRY SCHUPBACH JR. · OWNER · CERTIFIED PEDORTHIST
Award Winning Craftsman
Quality shoes, boots, and repair — built for every trade, profession, and occasion.
CHAPTER · PRESS
He's one peach of a cobbler
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION · 10/12/03
By MARIAN DOZIER — For The Journal-Constitution
Photo by KEITH HADLEY / AJC Staff
Since 1995, Larry Schupbach has toiled alone, in relative obscurity, in his 750-square-foot shoe shop in Tucker, fixing soles, shining shoes, stitching handbags. He has a steady clientele, and they trust that his work will be the best. Now, so do about 8,000 of his shoe repair colleagues around the country.
Schupbach, owner of Village Shoe Service, recently won the Grand Silver Cup in the Shoe Service Institute of America's 2003 national competition. The Silver Cup is the group's highest award in the most difficult category — craftsmanship. Each competitor had to submit three pairs of well-worn shoes and repair one shoe from each pair to factory-new condition. Judges then compared the repaired shoe to the unrepaired one.
Schupbach first entered the competition seven years ago. Each year he did better and scored higher. He was determined to win.
"I wanted to see how I'd measure up," he said. "I just wanted that Grand Silver Cup, so I kept at it until I got better year after year. This time I did it."
“I just wanted that Grand Silver Cup, so I kept at it until I got better year after year. This time I did it.”
The cup rewards Schupbach's hard work and highlights his 20-year shoe repair career. Schupbach began when he was 14, as an apprentice to his brother-in-law and the longtime cobbler his relative worked for at Lilburn Shoe Repair. The store owner had three shops then, but sold two — Village Shoe Service and Snellville Shoe Repair — in 1991 to Schupbach's brother-in-law. Schupbach bought the Village store from his brother-in-law eight years ago. And except for a couple of years of auto mechanic work after graduating from Snellville's Brookwood High in 1988, Schupbach has remained true to the leather trade.
"When my brother-in-law first asked me about it [when he was a teenager], I said, 'yeah, OK.' I did it, I liked it and I stayed with it. I liked it from the beginning."
Besides shoes, Schupbach repairs luggage and nearly anything else requiring stitching, including gun holsters, knife sheaths, belts and handbags. He also does a brisk business selling new Bostonian men's dress shoes and Clark's shoes for men and women.
“He's one peach of a cobbler.”
CHAPTER · SSIA NEWS RELEASE
Schupbach Achieves National Recognition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NewsRelease Association Manager · Jimmy Benson
Larry Schupbach of Village Shoe Service, 3900 Lavista Road Suite 104, Tucker, GA, has been honored by his peers with the Grand Silver Cup — the Shoe Service Institute of America's top award in their 2003 international Silver Cup Contest.
To compete, Schupbach submitted two pairs of men's shoes and a pair of ladies' shoes. He repaired one shoe from each pair — new sole, new heel, refinished to look factory-new — and was judged against his own unrepaired mates.
"One of the principal benefits of shoe repair is that consumers can have their shoes repaired to look like new, but for a fraction of the cost of new shoes," says SSIA Association Manager Jimmy Benson. "The purpose of the Silver Cup Contest is to recognize craftsmen such as Larry Schupbach who maximize that benefit and set the standards for our industry."
Benson noted that the benefits of shoe repair extend well beyond cost savings: millions of pairs of shoes kept out of landfills, the physical benefits of a properly maintained pair, and the medical benefits offered by shops specializing in orthopedic work.
"All of these benefits start with superior craftsmanship," he says. "That is why craftsmen such as Larry Schupbach are so important."
Judging for the contest took place in June at the Orlando offices of Florida Leather Co. Two master craftsmen and past Silver Cup winners, with a combined 75 years of shoe repair experience served as judges. The judges compared the repaired shoes to their unrepaired mates and evaluated the entries based on how well Schupbach had restored them to their original, factory condition.
Schupbach will receive his award from SSIA President John McLoughlin at the 99th Annual Shoe Service Convention. The convention will be held July 19-20, 2003 at the Sheraton Hotel in Sunnyvale, CA
The Silver Cup Contest, an international competition dedicated to excellence in shoe repairing, is sponsored by Supplier and Wholesale members of the Shoe Service Institute of America, and the craftsmen of the shoe repair industry. Schupbach also took 1st place in the Casual Shoe Category.
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For more information please contact Larry Schupbach at 770-938-7463 or SSIA Association Manager Jimmy Benson.
CHAPTER · CRAFTSMANSHIP
Awards
Larry has earned multiple SSIA awards — including the Grand Silver Cup, the industry's highest craftsmanship honor. He now judges the same competition he once entered as a young cobbler.
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2003 | Grand Silver Cup Award |
| 2003 | 1st Place International Re-crafting Competition · 100th Year Anniversary · Casual Shoe Repair · 1st Place |
| 2003 | South Silver Cup |
| 2002 | Half Sole & Heel · 2nd Place |
| 2002 | Southeastern Blue Ribbon |
| 1998 | Southeastern Silver Cup |
| 1997 | Eastern Red Ribbon |
| 1995 | Eastern Red Ribbon |
We offer a Factory Quality Shoe Re-crafting Service.
CHAPTER · IN PRINT
Village Shoe News
Now at 4286 Railroad Ave., Downtown Tucker · Main St. & Railroad Ave. · 770-938-7463
Larry Schupbach wins the 2003 Grand Silver Cup — as covered in the SSIA News Release and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "He's one peach of a cobbler."
July 2002 · Village Shoe Service becomes an Authorized Birkenstock Repair Shop. Keep those Birks coming!
