To get to Antonio Munoz’s shoe repair shop, customers have to step down a set of concrete stairs into the basement of the Oak Park Avenue retail building he’s set up in.

A little bell at the door rings as people step into Tony’s Shoe Clinic, 115 N. Oak Park Ave., a small space that smells of leather and shoe polish. There’s a whirring noise in the store: Munoz’s mechanical sander, constantly on.

Munoz can be found before the sander, grinding away at the bottom of a pair of shoes, preparing to replace their soles.

Behind Munoz is his workbench, a pile of adhesive clumped up on the table, easy access when he needs to glue on new heels or those replacement soles he’s preparing.

Two metal stands are off to one side with fittings Munoz can place the shoes on when he needs to hammer new heels into place. Next to his sander is a press to push shoe leather into place.

Munoz has plenty of work, from adjustments people want done to newly purchased shoes to major renovation of pieces of leather that are shoes only in name.

Thirty years ago, when he started in Oak Park, there were 10 shoe repairmen in town, he said. Now, he’s the last, putting in 15-hour work days.

“I come over here at 6 o’clock in the morning and I go at 9:30 in the night, every day,” Munoz said. “When you like the job … you stay here. If you don’t like the job, it’s boring in one day, boring in one hour.”

And he likes the work, repairing not just shoes, but purses, luggage, belts, jackets. As he says, Munoz can fix just about anything with leather.

Munoz has spent 43 years in the business, he said, starting in Mexico. When he was younger, he needed work.

“One guy said, go there, they’ll find you a job there,” Munoz said. He went into shoe repair and never left.

Not only does Munoz take the jobs that walk in the door, he said, but also takes overflow work from other repairmen who don’t have time.

“It’s too expensive for new (shoes) right now,” he said. “Five years ago, it was … cheaper.” – Chris LaFortune