Paul Bass Photo
Fausto Guamantari, the new man selling, fixing and shining shoes on Whitney Avenue, learned his trade from his father back in Ecuador.
Guamantari worked as a teenager for his father Luis’s shoe business in the town of Gualaceo. That experience helped him land a shoe-repair job on 59th Street in Manahttan his second day after moving to this country in 1988. And it helped him develop his own string of Connecticut shops, beginning with one in Bethel in 2007 and then in Southbury in 2011.
On Wednesday afternoon Guamantari, who’s 49, cut the ribbon on his third store, at 2‑B Whitney Ave. in New Haven, near the corner of Grove, with the help of (from left in above photo) Yale Associate Vice-President Lauren Zucker; his wife, Elizabeth Guamantari; and Mayor Toni Harp. Yale University Properties is the landlord.
Guamantari named the store after his son Cristhian. His brother Felipe is helping him in the shop along with Elizabeth.
Besides repairing shoes, Guamantari has a shoe-shine stand …
… as well as accessories (laces, arches, polish) and his own name-brand leather line of new shoes (pictured) for sale.
He said he loves to “see my customers happy” by bringing new life to worn-out shoes. He restores the leather while often replacing rubber soles and heels, which wear out faster. Restored shoes are often more comfortable to wear because they’re already broken in, he observed.
Like the ones he wore Wednesday. They were Prada, not Guamantari. Original leather. Replaced rubber heel and sole.