Junior Shoe Port

I’m as shocked as anyone to be giving a five-​star review to *any* shoe store, much less a chain store (or at least a franchise) but «Junior Shoe Port» (which is labeled as Stride Rite) at the Stuyvesant Plaza managed to earn that distinction awfully quickly.
This despite the fact it’s a bit of a small store, with probably many fewer pairs on display that your typical box store shoe department and certainly fewer than your typical Payless. But service, when you have hard to fit kids, is critical, and on that Junior Shoe Port/​Stride Rite delivereed in spades.
We came because the store carries Merrell, one of the few kids’ brands that has well-​fitting slip-​on shoes. (Our four year old has proven to be a destructive force on any shoe with a lace, stretchy, velcro, tab, button, hook, or any other known fastening device.) And we found them, but we also found Mallory, the employee who spent enormous amounts of time and attention getting both our hard-​to-​fit-​for-​different-​reason kids well-​fitting shoes.
Now I wish I could add that we got a really nice bargain price, but that we did not. We paid retail, as it were. But I keep reminding myself that having a well-​fitted shoe that’s not going to wear out as quickly as the $ 15 specials at Target, and that is going to stay on, and that might actually last the tortures our boys put them through to be outgrown, is probably more cost-​effective in the long-​run. At this store we got a clerk who was willing to dive into stock to find the half size in wide we needed for one kid and the narrow, long size we needed for the other.
And Mallory not only got us the right shoes, she was able to subtly steer my older kid from getting shoes he just thought looked cool and got him into a pair that fit much better and which I hope is going to wear well. That kind of cleverness is difficult to purchase at any price.
In the end you are paying for excellent service, and that we got, and I don’t regret it for a moment.
I’m a stingy mean evil skinflint when it comes to giving out five stars, and I hate shoe shopping, so I hope y’all can appreciate exactly how bizarre it is for me to find myself saying this, but this is a five-​star kids’ shoe store.

Junior Shoe Port is the local Stride Rite retailer. I have no idea if their shoes cradle the developing feet of my children, to help them grow straight and true. But buying shoes here certainly give me that level of confidence.
Perhaps it’s a scam. I am definitely a sucker for good marketing.
But this is a store with a tremendous amount of integrity. I bring the children here every three months to check on their developing feet and to get them sized. And more often than not, the store sends me away empty handed.
Let me say that again.
I walk into the store, ready to drop $ 50 on a pair of bullshit expensive kids shoes, and they tell me to leave because the shoes still fit. I love that. And it makes me feel so much better about dropping $ 50 on a pair of bullshit expensive kids shoes.