ORANGE PARK – Hardly a day passes without someone calling or stopping by Gus and Company Shoe and Luggage Repair and asking Lee Vaccaro and Michael Hill if they really are cobblers. 

They chuckle and answer yes, knowing they do much more. In addition to being able to “fix any shoe,” Gus and Company is a luggage repair center specializing in handbag, belt and wallet repairs, alterations, saddles, hats, brackets, leather, shoe-stretching and zippers. 

It’s a craft that started in the Vaccaro family in 1904 and is now in its fourth generation. 

“My great-grandfather got this started in Jacksonville in 1904,” Vaccaro said from the Orange Park store at 1871 Wells Road. “’If a human being made it, a human being could fix it’ was my grandfather’s mantra.” 

Vaccaro said the COVID-19 pandemic challenged his specialized industry. His family closed the Wells Road location, which they opened in 2009, and the Jacksonville store on Adams Street, and has slowly rebuilt their customer base. 

“People weren’t wearing pants or shoes during COVID, and they weren’t traveling,” he said. “It was the first time in 120 years that we ever closed the store during the height of COVID.” 

Another obstacle is that many people aren’t aware that leather repair services still exist. 

“There are days we get two or three people who ask if we really fix shoes or work with leather,” Hill said. “They seem surprised.” 

“There aren’t many people left who do this,” Vaccaro said. 

Gus and Company provides the boots and shoulder straps for the motorcycle units for the Clay, St. Johns and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Offices and the saddles, breast plates, harnesses and stirrups for the Mounted Patrol Unit for JSO. 

“We stay busy,” Vaccaro said. “We’ve done heavy-duty furniture covers that had to be adapted and manipulated, a lot of customization and alterations to boots and ladies’ ice skates and roller skates, vintage items like the restoration of a leather donkey and stuffed leather elephant.” 

And, of course, they fix shoes. 

“We do souls, heels and things like that,” Vaccaro said. “They are all done in the back. We have ripped jackets, handbags, buckles for shoes and things like that.” 

Gus and Company is also a certified luggage repair center for Samsonite, Hartmann, Boyt, Ricardo, American Tourister, Vera Bradley, Swiss Army, High Sierra and SkyWay. That alone is a full-time job. 

If it’s ripped, torn, faded, too small, damaged or falling apart, Vaccaro said his grandfather told him, “If a man made it, a man can fix it.”