I go by the name of Chryst Young
and I have an addiction
I'm addicted to sneakers
it all started out as a kid
and just like you
I couldn't wait to go sneaker shopping
so on the first day of school
I can show up with the freshest pair of kicks money can buy
but as I got older
it turned into not just having the flyest kicks on my feet
but I wanted more
I wanted rare sneakers
limited editions
hard to find kicks
the ones you couldn't just go to a regular sneaker store to get
so follow me on my journey
I'll be taking you all around the world to talk sneaker culture
with collectors...
sneaker fanatics
boutiques
celebrities and athletes
so buckle up your seatbelts
enjoy the ride
this is The Sneaker Game
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so Steve and I were actually in the gym when we kind of came up with the idea so
we knew like Steve, Steve's always been in the sneakers and then Mike is
actually Steve's cousin and he was a big sneaker head so we knew we had the
knowledge there and we knew there was something that we needed a place where
people can clean their shoes kind of restore them and we're all have ties to we
all have ties to Jersey City still we knew this is hard the culture part of
the sneaker culture around here so we wanted to create the business and go
from there and we started as a pickup delivery which is great and then we
noticed more and more people picking us up they really liked what we were doing
and that's that's how what got us here today
open up the storefront
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um yeah so sole fresh was just a name that Steve actually came up one day just
walked into my room I wrote it down on a piece of paper threw it on my desk and
then I was like sole fresh sole clean? I was like alright let's work I actually
wanted a different name that was actually a horrible name that I think
about it but after today we've realized that soul crush really resonated well it
really gives you a sense of what we do sole fresh keeping your shoes clean we're
trying to develop a brand around it keeping your style fresh keeping her
style shoes everything clean at all times and people are starting to get it
and people are starting to remember the name so we're pretty happy with one fact
growing up you know I was kind of like not a crazy big sneaker head but I do
enjoy you know nice little sneakers Jordans things at that I always try to
stay fresh the back of the day you know I had a lot of sneakers put them a
rotation that way I don't beat one down too much versus the other pairs and then
that way you know my ten pairs can always stay fresh looking rather than
one being will beat up versus the other nine pairs I had a problem where I just
had sneakers that were dirty that I didn't wear anymore because they were
dirty but you know if I put in some time and some effort to clean them up you
know I definitely can wear them again so when we started the business I just
mentioned before we started with pick up delivery started you know trial & error
learning different techniques different materials different solutions different
brushes and just kind of you know trial and error going through practicing on
you know pairs that we had at home and then eventually you know when we got the
business up and running started cleaning customers pairs things like that a lot of times
run into issues but prior to launch of the business we went through all the
trial and error first to make sure that you wouldn't myself a customer's
expensive sneakers we wear the mess I was messing with our own sneakers so
that's that's pretty much how I got started in the business really
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it's tough man I mean our team we're so thankful that our team is so good at
what they do because this is a specialized skill that you can't really
find elsewhere like our guys are literally scraping off the paint down to
the bone and then repainting it by hand and making sure their lines are good so
it takes a little bit of time there's a lot of attention to detail you got to be
very patient you can't get frustrated it's just something that's really
important for our business and a lot of people need this kind of service and
we're happy to be one of the few that and one of the few if not one of the
only places that does restoration like this
so person comes in drop off their sneaker
um we kind of inspect it and kind of give their recommendations in terms of
what we think you know will be the best fit in terms of cleaning so we kind of
walk them through our packages are you know we have a basic clean with just a
midsole and upper then a next tier is pretty much the whole outer shoe so
include a bottom you know take off all the gunk midsole upper and clean laces
and then our white glove special includes cleaning the inside insoles we
include the shoe shoe string and we power spray at the end of it to keep it
fresh for them to wear afterwards and keep them clean
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well I mean in terms of restoration while cleaning forget Yeezys for days
restorations we all get all tons of Jordans you can go 1 through 20 all the
way to the top to the bottom so it all depends like a lot of our guys who work
in the store they are sneaker heads so anytime they see like a nice nice pair
of kicks that they've never seen before it's always like a blessing for them
because this is what they love to do so I can't even name all of them but I mean
it's just it's just cool to see all the different types of shoes whether it's
being shipped from California Florida Michigan or wherever it comes from but
yeah we've seen a ton of different ones but we always get Yeezys all get AJ ones
3's, 5's everything so
so first step would be you know clean off take off the laces
um and we generally clean of laces first these laces are pretty brand new
so we'll focus on that later but you know first thing to do is to go to laces
uh insert some shoe treats and gets to cleaning
so I mean we do the restoration we do the cleaning
we retail we have retail clothing as well we also do shoe polish
too so we have a lot of professionals in the Jersey City area so we do that shoe
polish and shine service for them and most of the times people want us to come
to their offices come to their facilities or fly out to their area and
then have an event at theirs at their spot so I mean that's been great for us
they have they love to do like a one-day sneaker cleaning for their employees
things like that so that's also what you do
there's a lot of times where we have
customers come in and they tell us off the bat that hey I bought a you know
Jason marks cleaners and I try to use it and this is what happened we just bring
it back to us and it's like all messed up and it's because I'm not knocking
Jason mark for their product but it's maybe presenting you the right brush you
know so let's say it's a suede shoe and they're using like a really stiff
hard brush on it it's where you have messing up the suede
um when you're dealing with suede you gotta be delicate
try not to wet it too much use you know soft
brush things like that so that's I guess the challenge would be you know kind of
explaining to the customers the process and kind of managing the expectations
with a lot of times we can only clean to the best our ability and we will do to
the best ability as if they're our own sneakers and number one goal is to
please the customer there are times where customers come in drop off a
really beat pair and expect it to come back brand new again
and that's just impossible you know but we do do our best and do it to the best
our ability to bring it back as new as possible to all the best our abilities
it's not a particular kind of sneaker but suede is always a problem sometimes
it's a very delicate kind of material so we gotta make sure we're very careful
about it so if you don't want to map it up too much work its kind of affects the
way it looks so I mean in terms of like odd it's more of a sneaker material so
suede is definitely hard one the most skill would have to be sole swapping
that's pretty much the process of I'd say this sneaker I mean just think it's
still pretty brand new but I'd say over time you get the heal drag everything is
kind of like worn out so instead of you know maybe the Air Force is maybe not
the best example because you can just go buy brand new air forces but jourdan's
for example you know a lot of people have OG's or their sole starts coming
apart over time because the glue is just you know deteriorating after ten years or so
or let's say you know they have chunks missing in there sole so we do a sole swap
it's pretty much the process of ripping off the old sole finding a used pair that
still has a pretty good sole that we can use rip off that sole and then putting it
back on to the original shoe so that's probably the most difficult process in
terms of restorations painting repainting and and taking off the paint
it it's tedious and it's meticulous but if you have the hands and the skills for
it it's it's fine but when you're doing sole swaps
when you're gluing the sole back onto the original shoe you essentially only
have one shot to do it right because the glue is pretty and bonds pretty quickly
so like once you put apply the glue you kind of let it set once you're ready to
reattach the sole you kind of have to line everything up properly because if you
accidentally don't line up properly it's gonna bond really hard and at that point
you're gonna have to rip it off and redo everything it's all over again
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yeah I mean we get we get all types of sneakers that come in here from barely any stains
to really really bad stains and a lot of times is some cleans takes more than
just one claims you know because you come in here and you buy a clean doesn't
mean we clean it once our goal is to take out the stains at our deep setting
inside the sneakers even if it takes two or three cleans so it you know it's it's
probably not difficult but it's it takes time you know because you kind of have
to clean it let it dry see which you know leftover dirt stains are and kind
of go at it again and again and again until we can only do so much and it's
like I well it's that's the best we can do so that's probably the most difficult
part is that some of the deep setting stains can go in there we get a ton of
off-whites, off-whites are pretty big on there couple dorm Becker's that come
through the door for the most part but I mean yeah like it's it's pretty cool to
see some of these higher end sneakers that we've never seen before
and yeah but definitely I would say I have to say a lot of the off-whites
I've been always cool to see they're always super rare I always try to get it
on the app and it's always impossible so just to be able to see that in person as
always good, a lot I mean like a lot of it is just like repaints you know
because like people come in like paint job is you know overtime wear and tear
paints chipping it's scraped off or they say they got to like they bump their
sneaker into something you have a smudge so the process of
stripping everything and just repainting everything again it looked brand-new
it's satisfying to me there's like all this is my work and then seeing
customers reaction when you give it to them that makes you know us happy too
because seeing the customer happy know that you know we did our job and
hopefully we got a customer for life yeah I mean that's exactly it
so a lot of the customers come to us they've gotten like the OG's back in
the day or one of the earlier re-releases
and they see all these new re-releases now and
they're like no I just want to take care of my shoes bring them back
to life take them out of the closet sometimes but they've never worn and
it's just great to be able to do that for them so yeah sometimes when
re-release comes out people are like oh instead of buying the shoes maybe these
guys can help us fix it for us and that's what we've been saying yeah I had
a pair of and it was my friend's pair we found out that started his business so
he kind of reached out to me it was a pair of flip Jordon threes and these
were beat and I mean super beat I do have before and after pictures that
could show you but yeah they were real dumb beat where the back tab of it it
was yellow yeah paint chipping off the midsole repainted back to like brand-new
and he was like wow I can actually wear these again hey I mean more sneakers are
better so I mean even if people are buying new sneakers and they really care
for it the way that we care for our sneakers they're gonna care about the
way they looks eventually over time with oxidation oxidation you might get on
yellowed maybe they'll step in a puddle or whatever it may be so I mean it's
it's definitely all the chance of that happening are out there and as long as
they care about their sneakers the way that we do they're definitely always
gonna look for a service like this
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yeah, I mean Jordan's a lot of it's like
restoring Jordans and things like that you know it's kind of hard to restore
Yeezys because with material but a lot of its like when it's leather and
midsole re-paints those are the easiest to restore had somebody had a pair of uh
Balenciagas the one of the like socks they they came from Long Island they drove
all the way out here and he had some yellow stains on his white midsole he
told me he tried cleaning it nothing worked so you know at that time it was
my first time kind of working on them and I was like yeah just you know give
us a shot but we can't do it we won't charge you for it but I was able to like
make them yell at yellow stains and I'll make the yellow things go away making
brand new white again and feel super happy about it
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so like yeah I mean we get that all the time people asked us like hey I need I need a repaint or
blah blah blah I need it by next week because I'm going on vacation I'm like sorry man
we can't do that if we if that was the only pair we were working on maybe we
could turn around in a week but reality is we're so backed up with restorations
right now that like we have to have a waiting list until we can get caught up
on our restoration orders because at that point it's unfair to customers who
already drop off their pairs and it's unfair to the customers who are dropping
off their pairs now because we won't be able to touch it four or five weeks
until we're all done with our you know first restoration work so typical if we
had no other orders our typical turnaround time and turns a restoration
let's say like a re-paint we say like give us probably 2-3 weeks
but the fact that like we're so backed up right now it's kind of ranges but
like I said if you're just focusing on one project we can probably turn it
around in like two weeks
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I mean it's all a dream right now but we would love for this to do really well in
Jersey City potentially open up one in like a major city is like a New York or
Miami in Houston in LA and as get as big as we can get
I mean we've gotten enough we've gotten hits from Switzerland Ireland from
different countries so a lot of people are drawn seeing the attention that
we're trying to create and a lot of people I think it's pretty cool
so I mean it can only get as big as we want it too so...
trying to figure that out
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