Reyers Opens Its New Home in Eastwood Mall

NILES, Ohio – Reyers Shoe Store has opened the doors at its new home in the Eastwood Mall, marking the company’s first move away from Sharon, Pa., since it was founded more than 135 years ago.

“We leave Sharon with a broken heart but we’re moving to the Eastwood Mall with open arms,” said co-owner Mark Jubelirer shortly after the store opened at 10 a.m. Monday. “We have a rather large footprint wherever we land. We’re geared to do a lot of business. We have a huge inventory. We rely on a viable market and we find that here at the Eastwood Mall.”

Already, within minutes of opening, customers were wandering the aisles and talking with sales associates. While the store is open, co-owners Mark and Steven Jubelirer say the grand opening celebration is still down the road as Reyers gets used to its new location in the former Forever 21 store just off the Eastwood Mall’s central court. There isn’t much signage advertising that the long-standing company has a new home; the only indications are the Reyers Shoeseum in a window, a “now hiring” sign and, behind the counter, historic images of the company’s storefronts over the years.

“We have to get some ducks in a row and work out some kinks. But all in all, our planning was superlative,” Mark Jubelirer said. “We are ready for business.”

The effort to move thousands – a conservative estimate, the Jubelirer brothers agreed – of shoes, as well as displays and other equipment was no small undertaking. With a home in Sharon since the company was founded in 1886 and more than 40 years at its previous site at the eastern end of downtown, there was plenty to move.

“Have you ever moved out of your house? It’s a huge undertaking. People hate doing it. Imagine it being 10 times worse or a hundred times worse,” Jubelirer said. “We were in downtown Sharon for 135 years. There are things we came upon that we never knew we had and everything is precious. It takes months to get it organized.”

Beyond that, it involved operations that the company – which the Jubelirer family took over in the 1950s – has never had to do before, things like getting a new phone system and getting permits in Ohio.

“It was almost scary to us at how big the total job was and how much of it came down to details. There are so many particulars,” Mark Jubelirer said. “These are things that we’ve never had to deal with, ever really.”

The success of the move, the co-owners said, came down to the people involved, both employees of Reyers and outside companies. Both praised mall owner Cafaro Co. for their help, while Cleland Brothers Moving of Boardman spent five days hauling truckloads of equipment from the old store to the Eastwood Mall.

“Everybody was extremely helpful. Everybody was extremely busy. My brother took on a great brunt of the effort, along with his wife, who’s our accountant. Great credit goes to Vince Cardamon, our store manager for decades who we grabbed out of retirement. He was our operations manager, our ramrod on this,” Jubelirer added. 

“It was an undertaking like none we’ve ever had in more than a century in business,” he continued. “This was a yeoman effort from all our employees.”

Pictured: Reyers Shoe Stores co-owner Mark and Steven Jubelirer in the store’s new space in the Eastwood Mall.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.