After 80 Years, Bethel Shoes Closes Its Doors

By Jeff White

BETHEL — It is just after 9 am when Mike Carosella unlocks the door to his store, walks by a few tables piled with shoes, and flips the light switch. The light now reflects off an increasing number of bare surfaces.

After 80 years in business, Bethel Shoes will close its door to Greenwood Avenue at the end of this month. Mr Carosella has been here, working in the family business, for almost 60 years now, and has watched the small, independent retailer slowly move toward extinction. Yet through the boom of the retail mega-chain stores, Bethel Shoes held its corner of PT Barnum square securely. To talk to Mr Carosella, sitting in his back office surrounded by old, tattered clippings from various newspapers, is to understand the value of hard work and customer service.

“If I would hire someone new, I’d tell them, ‘you see that watch you’re wearing? Take it off and throw it in the garbage. You don’t work eight-hour days. You work 12- and 14-hour days,’” he says.

“Whatever we could do to make the customer happy, we would bend over backwards,” Mr Carosella recalled of the store’s standards of customer service.

The store’s philosophy has changed little since its opening in 1919, when an Italian immigrant named Louis Carosella bought a store for sale next door to English Drug. Greenwood Avenue was known as Center Street in those days, and Louis Carosella named his new store Center Shoe Repair, a small 300 square-foot store which focused on the trade of the day, cobbling.

After 10 years at 73 Center Street, Louis Carosella moved his store to the block where it still resides, occupying the space where the pewter store is now, then moving to where the glass shop currently sits on the right side of PT Barnum Square. In 1960, the business made its last move, and changed its name to Bethel Shoes.

Many people credit Louis Carosella for building a good portion of what is now known as downtown Bethel. In all, he added 12 stores to the downtown area, but his shoe store was always at the center.

It was in those early years that Mike Carosella, now 70 years old, began in the business, working after school sweeping the sidewalk outside the store. “We had a nice clientele,” he recalls. “We carried the best names we could, the best names in the industry. We prided ourselves on fitting.

“We were never too proud to grab a broom or wash windows,” Mr Carosella added, remembering how his father Louis would often be seen at the front of the store, on a ladder, washing the windows.

During Bethel Shoe’s heyday, there were no less than 12 shoe stores in the Bethel and Danbury area. Although these stores phased out as time when on, Bethel Shoes remained. “We survived because we went the extra mile,” Mr Carosella explained. “Many shoes stores came to Bethel. How come they went and we’re here? We went the extra mile for customers.”

Mr Carosella has noticed changes in the industry during his career managing the store. In the beginning, shoe repair was the backbone of Bethel Shoes. But that service faded away as it became more apparent that people wanted to buy the latest shoes on the market.

He also tells you how important the smaller shoe stores were to building up product recognition for such companies as Nike and Florsheim, the same companies that now make it almost impossible for Mr Carosella to get the merchandise he needs to stay in business.

“The little shoe stores built up the name brands, and then they got big,” he said. “Now, if you can’t do the volume, they won’t ship you the products. We can’t get the business, so it got to the point where we had to decide to close. The noose gets tighter every day.”

Mr Carosella is now waiting for a customer who is driving up from New Jersey to look for a particular shoe for his mother. It used to be common for customers to make special trips to Bethel Shoes. They would come from Newtown, Danbury, Ridgefield, New Milford and even New York. Bethel Shoes has long specialized in prescription footwear, and Mike Carosella still prides himself on being able to fill special orders, a service he knows the larger shoe chains cannot touch.

Long-time customers of the store remember the service that came with walking through its doors. Louis Carosella and his son Mike would often stop what they were doing just to take care of a customer. They would keep bringing out shoes until a customer found what he or she wanted.

Mike Carosella remembers those days when less meant more, and he knows that in today’s business quantity often trumps quality. “The little ‘Ma and Pa’ stores’ days are numbered, I believe. It’s sad, in a way,” he says. “Today, there are less than 9,000 independent shoe stores in the country.”

But Mr Carosella knows that the time has come to retire. He mans the store by himself these days, after his two long-time assistants passed away. Not content to just close his doors suddenly, the store has been holding a retirement sale for the past two months, and will continue for the next week. Moreover, Mr Carosella has donated a large amount of his inventory for flood relief efforts.

In about two weeks time, he will flip his light switch off for the last time, and lock the same doors that squeaked open this morning. “My father always said, ‘Give it your best until the last day, and when you don’t want it anymore, get out.”

Until his retirement day comes, Mr Carosella will still greet his long-time customers, many of whom will be coming though the door in these next days to say their goodbyes. Of course, there are still shoes to buy, and Mr Carosella still desires to serve anyone who comes to his store, the way it has always been at Bethel Shoes. “If I have an extra minute, I’ll even shine their shoes for them,” he says. “I’m not too proud.”