A shoe stopper: Retail windows bearing sale signs after the holidays are as rampant as weeds in July. But this year, the 50 percent-off signs plastering the windows of the Fell Shoe Co. in downtown Highland Park included a more poignant legend.
They were thank-you notes to more than three generations of customers. This sale was the last for the store because, as of last weekend, it’s no longer business as usual for owner Bob Fell of Lake Bluff.
After 74 years of fitting North Shore feet with everything from gym shoes and snow boots to that first pair of heels and prom pumps, the family business has packed away the shoehorns. A second store in Winnetka, sold to employees in the late 1980s, closed more than a year ago.
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Fell, a Highland Park native whose father, Milton, started the business in 1921, blamed the demise of the family business on increasing competition from malls.
“At one time, everyone on the North Shore bought their shoes from Fell’s, Joseph’s or Saks Fifth Avenue,” he said. “People were coming from all over to us. This was the only place college kids could buy anything back home in their own downtown.
“Now, if they travel any distance, they go to shopping centers. The competition from other retailers is immense.”
He added that customers were “shocked. But there’s a lot of understanding. In some respects, this (closing) has been very heartwarming. It’s been marvelous from that standpoint.”