The Heart and Sole Of Virginia Beach
Meet Lucian Montagna Jr, Owner, and Lucian Montagna III, VP, of Montagna’s Shoes in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Their family has been providing Hampton Roads residents with properly fitted shoes and exceptional customer service since 1922.
VP Lucian Montagna III (left) and Owner Lucian Montagna Jr (right) of Montagna’s Shoes in Virginia Beach, VA.
How It All Began
It all started in 1880 when Guiseppe Montagna arrived in Virginia from Sicily. Eventually, Guiseppe opened up a shoe repair shop. By 1922, Guiseppe and his three sons opened the first Montagna Shoe Shop on Granby Street in Norfolk, right down the street from The Granby Theater.
In 1976, Guiseppe’s grandsons, Lucian and Joseph, opened up a Virginia Beach location off Independence Blvd. Lucian and current owner Lucian Jr. relocated the business in the late 1980s to Pembroke Meadows, where it currently stands.
Eventually, the Norfolk location on Granby Street closed down, but Montagna shoes kept providing quality customer service and good-fitting shoes.
A Prescription For Shoes
As a certified pedorthist, Lucian Montagna Jr. “fills prescriptions” for proper footwear, orthotics, and buildups. No two people’s feet are the same and the Montagnas help ensure shoes are customized to fit a wide range of widths and sizes and are a solution to medical conditions. The biggest issue Lucian Montagna III says he sees is “ill-fitting footwear due in part to today’s online shopping, rack store mentality, etc.”
Montagna’s Shoes offers a wide variety of shoe brands. Here are just a few:
It’s Review Preview Time!
At Rogers Advertising, we set up review previews with our clients to review the results, trials, and tribulations they’ve experienced recently and to preview what they are hoping to see in future months. So we asked the Montagnas for a review and preview of their business.
What have been your proudest moments?
“We have survived yet another major setback in our country, the pandemic, we are now 100 years in, and our business is once again growing as we serve our customers, in spite of today’s obstacles, online shopping, discounters, etc,” said Lucian Montagna III. “I am able to fit people in shoes that seem impossible, the smiles on their faces as they walk out the door, make my day.”
In the past few years, what has been your biggest obstacle?
Despite overcoming so much adversity over the many years of being in business, from depressions to bombings, vandalism, and more, Lucian says that the biggest obstacle is “dealing with government bureaucracy, the regulations and red tape we have to go through to help some of our customers is a very real challenge. Many have given up, we have fought through the process and continue to do so to this day.”
A change in consumer habits, shifting from shopping in-store to online has also posed as a challenge for the Montagnas. “Some manufacturers would rather bypass the retailers and make more profit [by selling online].”
What are your future plans?
“Continue to build our retail brand with our old-world customer service with all the modern technological advancements in fit and comfort.”
Advice For Other Local Business Owners
Never give up, reinvent the wheel, do not chase your competition and listen to your customers. Remember, you can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be the best at what you do.
If you’re ready to get yourself into a properly-fitted pair of shoes, stop by Montagna’s Shoes in Virginia Beach.
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