- Pinner's Fine Shoes is closing after 58 years in Westgate Plaza, with owner Duke Pinner retiring at age 75 and planning a closeout sale through June.
- The store was founded by Pinner's father and served multiple generations with personalized service and custom shoe options, employing many UF students over 35 years.
After 58 years in the Westgate Plaza Shopping Center, Pinner’s Fine Shoes is preparing to close its doors.
Owner Duke Pinner announced the closure in a video posted to the store’s Facebook page on Monday, letting his emotions show as he revealed his retirement.
“As you know, I’ve got deep passion and love for this business,” Pinner told his customers. “It’s taken a long time to make this decision.”
Pinner said the plans to retire were set in motion two years ago, knowing that he wanted to step down on his own terms. With his 75th birthday approaching in September, he accepted it was time, even while calling it “bittersweet.”
The store will begin its closeout sale on Thursday and will remain open through the end of June at the latest, although Pinner expects the inventory may sell out long before then. Its furniture and fixtures are also for sale.
The business, once called Bill Pinner Footwear, was the life’s work of Pinner’s father. It remained in the shopping center at 34th Street and University Avenue, a firsthand witness to the changing landscape of local shops and Gainesville as a whole. The younger Pinner took over 35 years ago, running the store alongside three longtime associates and many a University of Florida student.
“Many of our [former employees] from UF have gone on to have incredible careers, and this was, for a lot of them, their very first job,” Pinner said. “We gave them a foundation of integrity and doing things the right way.”
Customers included generations of families, both local and from across the Southeastern United States. Pinner attributed the store’s success to the “personal touch” they could offer, as well as customized options for a wide variety of foot sizes and needs.
“There’s thousands and thousands of women that rely on us for shoes because they can no longer find them in the chains, in the big boxes, or even online,” Pinner said. “We’ve had a special niche that really made our store different and interesting to a lot of people.”
On Wednesday, as the employees shuffled shoes from the storage area to racks arranged in the usual boutique-style floor space, two boxes sat atop the register counter. They were for a loyal customer in Georgia, who had called after reading about the store’s closing and inquired about their favorite style and size.
“This is not as a result of business being off,” Pinner had reassured his customers on the Facebook video, “and thank goodness I’m financially able to do this.”
Pinner said his retirement plans include traveling with his wife, Kathy, whom he calls his “backbone.”
“She’s been very instrumental in organizing our store closing,” he said. “We’ve both worked all of our lives, and that’s the only thing we’ve known, but I’m looking forward to the next chapter and doing some stuff I haven’t done.”
Pinner said he can only reflect fondly on the chapter he’s closing, one where he felt excited to come to work every day and help his customers.
“I can’t express how much I appreciate my customers and their loyalty over the decades we’ve been in business,” Pinner said.