High-end athletic shoes stolen from specialty dry cleaner in Detroit

DETROIT (FOX 2) - An Avenue of Fashion shoe store has been hit twice by thieves. The owner, Kenneth Taylor, is the Shoe Doctor, located on Livernois in Detroit.

"Just like you take your clothes to the dry cleaner, you take your shoes to the dry cleaner, which is the Shoe Doctor," he said.

Thieves stole tens of thousands of dollars of luxury shoes that belong to other people from the shoe dry cleaning business.

Taylor has spent years building his shoe-cleaning business.

"I started it out of the trunks or my car because 10 years ago shoe repair shops didn’t accept gym shoes," he said. "A lot of people (saw) me start with nothing. I've opened multiple locations, I even got a location in Atlanta, Georgia."

But then after so much success, came the recent break-ins, just days apart.

"I was actually was in the hospital with pneumonia-like two days ago, got a call that store was being broken into," he said. "It's supposed to be one of the nicest areas in Detroit, Michigan.

"We were planning  on opening back up, but then we experienced another break-in."

The second break-in happened late Thursday night — into Friday morning.

"And they pretty much stole all the shoes last night," Taylor said.

The shoe doctor is now trying to come up with the money to pay his customers for their shoes that were stolen.

He has insurance but it will take time for the insurance company to approve the claim.

In the meantime, he got some words of encouragement from a loyal customer.

"Keep it going, keep moving forward," said Daylan Banks. "Don’t let this stop you."