WICHITA — One of the city’s oldest retail outlets is closing.
Fair’s Shoe Store in the Indian Hills shopping center at 13th and Meridian will go out of business by March.
“It has, unfortunately, been less than profitable for us over the last four years,” says general manager Andy Warren.
He says his family had planned to close Fair’s, which he thinks has been in business since the 1940s, in 2010 when it opened a New Balance and a Heads shoe store in the former Blockbuster space at 10231 W. 21st St. near Maize Road.
The family decided to keep Fair’s open and continue selling comfort shoes at a more moderate price.
“It just turned out to be a strategy that didn’t work,” Warren says.
He thinks there’s still a market for moderately priced comfort shoes.
“It’s probably being served at places like Famous Footwear, Shoe Carnival, Target and Walmart.”
Warren says the family’s other four stores are doing fine.
“The one out west has been kind of a bumpy road since they did the road construction over the summer, but it’s picking up where it left off.”
