Lessons from a multigenerational family biz

Master cobbler is a dying breed. But Pasquale Fabrizio, owner of Pasquale, the Los Angeles shoe restoration and custom shoe design workshop beloved by Hollywood’s elite, is keeping the family business alive. Founded by his uncle and namesake, Pasquale Di Fabrizio, in 1961, the workshop is now run by Pasquale and his two sons, Marco and Ricardo. Here, he talks about what it’s like to evolve a family business and how to build community and longevity in an ever-changing world. 

—Interview by Marcy Medina, edited by Bianca Prieto

Was Pasquale Shoe Repair always a family business?  

My uncle, Pasquale Di Fabrizio, came to Los Angeles via Italy and New Jersey and opened the business in 1961. I was born in Canada, but I was always going back and forth, and I trained there as a kid. My uncle actually owned two shops, one where his wife did shoe repair and one where he did custom shoes. When his wife passed, he asked me to step in, and I never looked back.

In 1993, I took over the business. Like all kids, my two sons never wanted to follow in the family footsteps, and I never pushed them. But they were in the shop on the weekends and would pick things up. They went to university and did their own thing until they eventually stepped in to help.

Now they have a breadth of knowledge they didn’t even realize they were learning all these years. The confidence is there, and now they’re starting to have the passion, the pride in ownership and history.

What are the pros and cons of running a family business?

The best thing is being around my family all day. My wife, Lina, is here too. When it comes to decision-making, the old dinosaur that I am is set in my ways, but the younger generation rightfully brings in the young attitude and the young blood. Now I relinquish things to them because they keep proving themselves in positive ways, but in the beginning, it was hard to let go.

How have your sons helped you grow the business? 

The kids were always in tune with the sneaker trend. They were the ones who pushed that market into an extension of the shoe repair business. In the last few years, we’ve seen a huge increase in sneaker cleaning.

Traditional shoe repair shops that shine your shoes are all gone because people don’t wear shoes that way anymore. Sneakers you can’t clean as quickly, but people have a lot of need for this because they get so dirty. It’s a concept they can expand to multiple small locations, and it’s easy to teach and train, so you can attract young people to work for themselves and make a good living.

We built all that infrastructure, and it’s almost ready to launch with an app and POS. I have no interest in social media, but my sons are working on it all the time. The kids also played a big role in developing our line of shoe care products from Italy. I keep telling them, “I’m in the backseat, and you are the drivers.”  

What advice would you give fellow SMB owners about how to maintain longevity?  

It’s the loyalty to the customer. Love what you do, and be really loyal to what you do and what they receive. That is what drove our business. We never advertised in 35 years; it’s all word of mouth. Take pride in your work, and it spreads to other people if you have that passion. Word of mouth is the biggest advertising you can get. The results may take longer to arrive, but are always lasting.

What advice would you give about building community? 

Back in the 90's, we had to relocate our shop in under four weeks, and this was before email and internet, so we had no way of telling everybody where we were going and nobody knew where we were.

In a few months, we lost 95% of our clients. We came really close to closing, but in that moment of panic, my wife decided to put banners with our new address on both sides of our old street, and within a week, there was a beeline of customers who found us. So always let your customers know where you are and what you are doing.

When we moved into our current space 25 years ago, the neighborhood was considered by some to be “on the edge.” But we brought all our customers, and other businesses realized they could cuddle up to these guys and feed from their energy. 

What you create is a community, and it connects people and makes it fun, so you feel like you are in a small town. I was just doing my own thing with no big vision in mind, building step-by-step, piece-by- piece. People follow that and go, “Wow, there is something different here,” and it encourages others to want to be there, too. We’re one of the anchors in the neighborhood, just like department stores were in the old malls.

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The SKUpe is curated and written by Marcy Medina and edited by Bianca Prieto.