Cobbler’s Nest

Right, so I have a pair of boots. Not just any pair of boots mind you, but a pair of Lucchese 1883 goat-​skinned, dog-​nosed (a term I just recently learned, see below) beauties that are perhaps my favorite possession (which isn’t saying much as the better part of everything I own can pretty much fit into a gym locker). Needless to say, I’m rather fond of them.
So, when I noticed the original soles had worn through given they are cowboy boots and not really meant to be stomping around the urban world, I knew I needed to find a cobbler. On the recommendation of a friend we popped in to Cobbler’s Nest and yea, my friend pretty much nailed it.
Small businesses are about people (something I know only too well having worked for Unilocal when it was still in its infancy, which involved talking to dozens of small business owners every day) and owners can make or break their businesses. Eric makes his. The man is a gem. You’d imagine a transaction of this nature would involve a simply hello, a pointing out of the problem to be fixed, discussing price, and then setting a pick-​up date. Not so here. Eric (originally from Jamaica but a Londoner for many years now) has a kind of infectious friendliness, the result of which found the two of us shooting the shit for the better part of fifteen minutes, laughing and talking about my boots and life and London and the Carribean. He drew attention to the particular feature of my boots, the tips that angle up and point, not down and rounded, admiring them and teaching me that that style is in fact referred to as «dog-​nosed». It got to be so ridiculous that my friend, running late, had to bid us both adieu (which neither of us really even noticed in the middle of our conversation), seeing no immediate end in sight to what should have been a five minute endeavour. She, like me, left smiling. Eric’s that kinda fella. Promising to get the boots looking their best again (which, to be fair, was an ambitious task, given I’d been wearing them recently on a particularly rough night in which I may or may not have fallen down a tube escalator /​eaten a kebab that, for the most part, just ended up falling onto my shoes), he gave me my receipt and we said our goodbyes.
Eric gave me a ring a few days later (ahead of schedule) to let me know the boots were ready so I popped in and, hey, the man knows his craft. They looked great. He’d completely replaced the soles, and put on a rubber layer that, once it wears, can be changed again very easily and for much cheaper than what it costs to completely re-​do the soles, so going forward it’ll only cost me 15 quid to get my boots up and running again. The original rework was 60, a price which seems fair. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I trust Eric and the work was done well. He also cleaned the leather and polished it up, and even did a bit of stretching on one boot for me, free of charge, as well as throwing in some leather rub, also gratis. Well played sir, well played.
Needless to say, I’ve found my cobbler for however long I might find myself in London, a city which can surely benefit from a beautiful pair of dog-​nosed cowboy boots kickin’ across its streets.