Footwear Insight

40 • Footwear Insight ~ January/February 2023 footwearinsight.com DESTINATION DARDANO'S RETAIL By Cara Griffin I f you're looking for a store that has plenty to offer, Dardano's Shoes has you covered in more ways than one with its new location in Broomfield, CO. Where should we begin? How about on the outside, where there is a drive-thru coffee shop. Or the inside, where there is a full-service café to go along with 14,000 sq. feet of modern footwear retail. ere is a wide variety of brands offered, dynamic merch displays and an engaged staff. Step inside and you are greeted with high ceilings, modular displays, shop-in-shops from multiple leading brands. Oh and a shoe repair shop, too, for good measure. "I am confident that this is one of the most premier footwear retail environments in the country," Dillon Dardano, VP of fourth generation, family-owned Dardano's Shoes, proudly says. In addition to a one-of-a-kind HOKA concept shop inside the store space (it's a large structure featuring the full range of HOKA products, including apparel), Dardano's has shop-in-shop concepts from brands such as Dansko, Keen, Naot, Mephisto, Taos, Birkenstock, Oofos, Altra, Oboz, Blundstone and more. e store boasts custom modu- lar retail fixtures from Visplay, Opto, and Creative Displays, and the full-service specialty coffee shop and drive-thru is in partnership with local business Queens City Coffee. Dardano's already had one popular store in the Denver area — now it has two. "Our goal for this new store was to really emphasize 'Destination Based Retail,' creat- ing an environment where consumers can engage with a multitude of products all in one place," says Dardano. "We want to be the destination for consumers looking for great shoes, and a destination for our brand partners' biggest selections to be seen." He continues, "is new store environ- ment is extremely open with high ceilings and the overall size of the building really takes people by surprise when they walk in. We have gotten a lot of positive comments about how beautiful and cool the overall environment is. It has been fun to see how much people are drawn to our HOKA shop and the Queen City Coffee shop that we have in our space." e new store includes a repair business — something the store has a long history of. Dardano's started as a shoe repair shop in 1938. "My great grandfather Frank Dardano (a cobbler by trade) emigrated from Italy and settled in Denver in the late 1930s," says Dillon Dardano. "We were primarily a shoe repair business until the 1970s. It was at that time that we started to branch into footwear. Shoe repair is still a core element of our business." e most common types of repairs at Dardano's, where there is a full team of skilled cobblers, are heel and sole replacements, cleaning/shining/refurbishing, patching and sewing, orthopedic modifications, and stretching shoes that are too small. e retailer also has a shoe repair website ezshoerepair.com that offers its full breadth of repair services online. But where the store truly excels, accord- ing to Dardano, is in its product offerings. "We hang our hat on the tradition of being a sit-and-fit comfort footwear retailer," he says, describing the business as a "premier footwear destination." Key categories for Dardano's include: athletic, outdoor, work, comfort, dress and travel. "We focus on making connections with our customers though ensuring our products help make NEW STORE FROM DENVER STANDOUT PUTS AN EMPHASIS ON DESTINATION-BASED RETAIL.

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