The Pedestrian Shops shoe store is celebrating our 40th Birthday on Saturday, August 21, by buying frozen yogurt from céfiore for the first 1,000 people who walk in to their downtown or Village shop and wish them a Happy Birthday.
Said Richard Polk, one of Pedestrian Shops’ founders, “It’s been great to make Boulder comfortable for 40 years. My daughters, Lauren and Zoe, and I are looking forward to the weeklong party.”
Polk and his then-partner, Tony Chirikos, originally started selling Earth Shoes out of a pickup truck in the late 1960s. Their first customers were employees at BrilligWorks bookstore. After graduating from the truck to an old Bookmobile, they opened a store at 1334 Pearl Street, across from the Courthouse, before the Downtown Mall when Pearl was still a street with traffic and parking. In the same block were Cotangent, where Anna Zapp and Rosie Cabus made cowboy shirts for rock stars, and the legendary Fred’s restaurant, where host Fred Shelton sang and played guitar to entertain his customers. In the 1980s Pedestrian moved to our current downtown location at 1425 Pearl. We also have had a store in the Village Shopping Center for 30 years.
Now the company is famed for firsts, including being the world’s first solar-powered shoe store, the world’s first shoe store to sell Crocs, and inventing the now popular concept of focusing on comfortable walking shoes. At least as far as we know.
For the rest of our birthday week, from Sunday through Friday, Aug. 22- 27, the Pedestrian Shops will continue giving free céfiore yogurt shop coupons to customers who make purchases. There will also be drawings for free shoes, and more.