'The time is right': Longtime Cape Breton family-owned footwear retailer set to close

A longstanding family-owned footwear retailer that dates back to the early 1900s will soon be closing up shop.

The Shoe Tree, operated by four generations of the Meloney family (Jean, Sid, Bruce, Lizz, and current owner Kate), has announced it will be permanently shuttering its downtown Sydney store by the end of the year — after more than 120 years in business.

“My wife, Lizz, and I have been semi-retired because our daughter (Kate Zwicker) has been running the store for a number of years,” said Bruce Meloney, who up until 2022 shared duties with Lizz as the store’s main owners. “But Kate lives in Bridgewater, so she was running everything from a distance.”

“We almost had a sale for it. We went through all the work, and we thought, ‘Gee whiz, this looks good,'” Meloney said. “But it fell through at the last minute.

“Because we couldn’t sell it, we thought, ‘Let’s do the honourable thing and end the business.’ So that’s what we’re doing.”

There were also decisions of a more personal nature involved, he said.

“A couple of years ago, my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and while she’s been feeling great, we decided to live each moment one day at a time,” Meloney said. “We didn’t want to be having to be involved in the business because we couldn’t do it justice.”

For Zwicker, who had taken over the Shoe Tree’s day-to-day business affairs between 2022 and 2023, she said balancing operations from her Bridgewater home and her family life made things hectic.

“I don’t live on the island; my family is based on the South Shore, and I have three children. So it’s just a very busy time in my life,” she said.

“It makes this decision really hard, because we’re making the decision for ourselves and our families, but we also know that it affects our staff, and we don’t really want to leave. But I think (now) the time is right.”

Selling shoes has been in the Meloney blood since the turn of the 20th century.

In 1900, Bruce’s grandfather George started working for the Vooght family in North Sydney before opening his own store, G.A. Meloney’s Boots and Shoes on Commercial Street around 1905.

George Meloney operated that store until 1928, when he passed away at the age of 64, leaving his younger wife, Jean, to operate the family business and raise three young children. The store was then known simply as Meloney’s Shoe Store.

His grandmother passed the business on Bruce’s father, Sid Meloney, after he returned from serving in the Second World War in 1945.

Sid ultimately grew the business.

He purchased the rival National Shoe store in North Sydney from Bill Cooke — who would go on to run a wholesale business in Moncton, N.B. — and renamed it Family Footwear Limited. Just two years later, Sid incorporated the business and renamed it Meloney’s Limited, leading to several forms of expansion, including a move to Smart Shop Place in Sydney under the name the Shoe Bar.

In the 1980s, the next generation — Bruce and Lizz — returned to North Sydney to continue the family legacy. They purchased Family Footwear in 1986 and worked alongside Sid to manage both Family Footwear and The Shoe Tree.

Bruce Meloney gives credit to both his father, Sid, and grandmother Jean, who lived to 103, for setting the foundations of a successful family business.

“They had a view of what they wanted,” Meloney said. “They all had a mindset of the customer was the important person, and to get good quality shoes. That’s what they did. And our whole life was spent doing that.

“I was raised with my four siblings, and we all had to work in the store at some point, and our children had to work in the store at some point. So it really is a family business.”

At one point, the family decided to permanently shutter Family Footwear and focus their efforts on transforming The Shoe Tree into a more fashion-forward boutique and refining their offerings.

In 2016, the store relocated to its current Charlotte Street location between Dorchester and Pitt streets, rebranded as a Rieker store and was known until recently as a dedicated branded concept store called Rieker by The Shoe Tree.

In 2022, the business welcomed its fourth generation when Zwicker rejoined the family operation and officially took over the store, returned the branding of the store to The Shoe Tree in 2024 to fully reflect the legacy the store holds.

Overall, the business survived two world wars, economic downturns, the arrival of shopping malls and big-box stores; the growth of online shopping and, most recently, a global COVID-19 pandemic.

“That definitely had an impact on the store,” Zwicker said of the pandemic years. “Obviously, we closed during that time, and, financially, that was a difficult recovery. But we were lucky that we had a really supportive staff, and we still had customers coming to the store during the time when we were closed.

“We have a very loyal customer base, and with the cruise ships that are in, the cruise ship seasons have been great for us, too.”

The Meloney family also took pride in establishing values of dedication, service and community. Their contributions were recognized when both Sid and Jean were inducted into the Cape Breton Business Hall of Fame in 2008, followed by Bruce and Lizz being inducted in 2022.

Meloney was also a two-time president of what was previous known as the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce. He further served on the chamber’s board of directors, was a driving force behind the establishment of the Cape Breton Partnership and has been heavily involved in the evolution of the Port of Sydney.

Additionally, he spent years as a member of the North Sydney Rotary Club and served as president of the Sydney Downtown Development Association.

“We gave back to our community that gave a lot to us,” Meloney said. “And I feel badly that our customers won’t have a place like the Shoe Tree to go to.”

Zwicker said she felt honoured to be part of the family’s retail history as well.

“Over 120 years — that’s an insane history,” she said. “I’m very grateful that I was able to be part of the fourth generation — for a short part that I played. But I’m glad that I’m able to be there with my parents to close out that chapter.”

According to a post on its social media page, “The Shoe Tree will remain open throughout the fall season as we work to clear inventory. Our final day will be (sometime) in December.”