Downtown Mesa shoe repairman 'busy all day'

Jul. 22—When Fabian De La Rosa came to Arizona in the late 1990's, he was just trying to save his own life. He had no idea how many other lives he would touch in the years to come.

De La Rosa had developed a potentially deadly case of pneumonia while working as a shoe repairman at a shopping mall in Michigan. His doctor gave him a sobering assessment.

"You wanna die, my friend?" he remembers the doctor saying. "I give you one week to leave the state. I'll give you strong medicine."

The doctor had told him that even the best medicine wasn't going to help De La Rosa overcome the harsh Michigan winter weather and the likelihood that pneumonia would regain a foothold in his vulnerable lungs.

So, De La Rosa, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, set out for the warmer, drier climes of the Sonoran Desert where he had family.

Now 58, he owns Lamb's shoe repair in downtown Mesa. With the skills he picked up in Mexico and in Los Angeles, he fixes shoes, purses, jackets and cowboy boots.

So many cowboy boots. His customers bring him 8, 10 pairs at a time. In fact, De La Rosa says looking back, he owes much of his success to being able to fix them.

He wandered into Lamb's after arriving from Michigan in the late 1990s looking for work. The owner at the time, Frances Shipman, had grown disillusioned with her cobblers and asked De La Rosa how long it would take him to repair a huge pile of boots.

"The lady was so desperate," he said. "She opened the door and there were at least 40 pairs of cowboy boots in there, unfinished. When I finished them in two days she couldn't believe it. She was so happy!"

And De La Rosa was hired.

Five years later, with Shipman in declining health, De La Rosa bought the business on a handshake. Just two weeks after the official paperwork was signed, a woman in her 90's came through the door and wanted to know "who is buying my business," he remembers her saying.

It was Maude Lamb, the original owner of Lamb's Shoe Repair. She had only one request, De La Rosa said. "Will you keep the name?" He happily obliged. "Of course," he told her. "No problem."

That was a Tuesday. On Thursday, Lamb's daughter came through the door to tell De La Rosa that "'my mother died last night. She was very happy'," she told him.

"They asked me to go to the funeral. At first, they all just looked at me and then they introduced me as the guy who bought the business. They all welcomed me. They were very nice."

It is a modest and quaint shop near the corner of MacDonald and Main Streets in Mesa. The walls are covered with plywood paneling, reminiscent of the 1970s. De La Rosa saw no need or reason to modify it, and it does give the place bit of a nostalgic, homey feel.

The shelves along the walls are filled with shoes, leather goods and pictures of family and previous owners. All of it is kept very neat and tidy.

De La Rosa has always made individual customer service a keystone of his business. During the interview for this story, he was on his hands and knees fitting a special shoe he created for a customer with a partially amputated foot. It fit perfectly. She was thrilled, which made him happy.

"I have to make sure they are happy. I listen. Try to understand what they are looking for. Lots of customers have problems that no one else seems to be able to fix, he said. No customer is the same. They are all different. You have to be nice. Never in a hurry."

Across cultural and generational lines, De La Rosa has managed to build a loyal and steady customer base at Lamb's. But running his modest business has not been without its challenges.

Like most businesses, the pandemic posed a grave challenge to Lamb's. "COVID times. It was very, very stressful. Having only three or four customers every day was very difficult," he said. "Normally, I would have 30 or 40 people. I wondered, where is the money to pay bills and support a family?"

He survived while many other businesses did not. "I passed the test," he said. "Thank God. I was able to survive. I was lucky to survive. Very lucky."

He and his wife have raised three daughters, all of whom attended college. The youngest recently graduated from ASU with a degree in chemical engineering. "She is very happy," he said. "This little shop has fitted me. My family. Pay my bills. The cars. Everything."

De La Rosa is anticipating a return to normal this summer and customers are starting to return to their pre-pandemic numbers.

He does not take that good fortune for granted. "I work hard. If you don't work hard, you don't get nothin'. I am busy all day. No excuses."