After more than eight decades in downtown Saskatoon, local business Burton’s For Shoes has announced it will be closing the doors of its Second Avenue location. “I think there was a lot of shock and sadness and just a lot of bittersweet feelings around it as this building has been like an iconic building in downtown Saskatoon for so many years,” said Ariel Laroque, the store’s social media manager. Laroque and family (the Cotes) have run the business since 2003, and now the store will be amalgamated into Bricker’s Shoes, which the Cotes family has owned since 1975. “Burtons For Shoes is going to be closed. However, it will be Bricker’s Shoes, just expanded. And with taking our knowledge that we’ve had from the years of being in business and the brands and everything that has done well — we are going to carry that into Bricker’s Shoes and hopefully carry the legacy of Burton’s For Shoes,” Laroque said. After it was announced that Burton’s would be closing its doors, many took to social media to share their memories of the store. Including local historian, Terry Hoknes. “My mother would come into Burton’s for Shoes. And I was her first child, and she just loved the shoes that they sold. They’re always beautiful high-end shoes,” Hoknes said. The local historian still has the first pair of shoes he ever owned from the store. “These shoes are about 55 years old. These were about $7 retail at that time, so that would be about $60 now. So my mother was spoiling her baby,” Hoknes said. The story of how the two shoe stores, Burton’s and Bricker’s, came to be starts with two men named Bert and Ernie. Bert Gladstone opened Burton’s For Shoes in the 1940s at its first location beside the Capitol Theatre. Eventually, that location moved as the theatre was demolished, and Gladstone opened up his store on Second Avenue. According to Hoknes, Gladstone was known to be a very involved member of Saskatoon’s business community and is responsible for the angle parking located in the city’s downtown. “He was always pushing for things to make the downtown better for shoppers, better for his employees,” Hoknes said. Meanwhile, Ernie Bricker opened Bricker’s Shoes in the 1930s. It was eventually purchased by Raymond Cote in 1975, and the business has remained in the Cote family since. According to Laroque, there was a point in time when Gladstone saw the potential of combining the two stores. “Many years before my parents actually bought the store, Mr. Bert Gladstone had approached my grandpa [Raymond Cote] over at Bricker’s Shoes and had actually asked to amalgamate the two stores and call it B&B. And at the time, my grandpa was not ready to make that move and combine the stores,” Laroque said. While the merger didn’t work out at the time, Laroque noted it all fell in place decades later. “It’s just a full circle moment now, with seeing how many, many years later and even generations later, that the stores are becoming one,” Laroque said. While the Coute family is glad that Burton’s doesn’t have to completely disappear, Laroque shared that the transition highlights a growing issue for local businesses. “Over the years, it has just become increasingly challenging to maintain two buildings downtown just with costs rising. The pandemic was a big part of it … online shopping. It just hasn’t been what it used to be,” Laroque explained. It’s an unfortunate trend that has impacted many local businesses over the years. Hoknes said that it can be disheartening to see so many prominent businesses that he remembers growing up with slowly disappearing. “It’s good news that the family is continuing the Bricker’s store so you can still get your amazing shoes and still be a prominent downtown business. It’s sad for those who shopped here, for decades. And the downtown, of course has shifted to all the old businesses of the prime golden days are gone,” Hoknes said. Laroque stressed the importance of continuing to support local businesses. “We hope that with this transition, that people kind of have that reminder ... We hope that people keep wanting to support local, because it is one of those things that can’t stay up and running if we don’t have the support of everyone in the city,” she said. Laroque added that the stories and well wishes from customers has been welcomed as many shared memories of the store which has been such a staple for the past 87 years. “It’s super heartwarming,” Laroque said. “It’s really nice to hear all those stories, like the amount of comments about people buying their first pair of shoes here from generations ago, and then their kids and their [kid’s] kids.”
