Have Shoes Will Travel

In 1976, at the age of 36, Gary Muhrcke, a former firefighter with a lifelong passion for running (Muhrcke won the first NYC marathon in 1970) decided to start selling running shoes from the back of a van. Traveling to high school and college track meets as well as road races all over Long Island and Manhattan, he quickly built a following and became the preferred provider of footwear for the New York City area runner. Twenty nine years later, Muhrcke and his wife, Jane, have 90 employees and own five Super Runners Shops, four New Balance Stores, one Super Runners Pro Shop at the Armory on 168th Street (where there is a New Balance Track and Field center) and two websites (superrunnersshop.com  and newbalancenewyork.com). Earlier this spring, Report editor Robert Levin sat down with Muhrcke to talk about how the running shoe business has changed and where it is going.

THE WARM-UP
RL: You started out in the running shoe business in 1976, when running was certainly not what it is today.

GM: Yes. Running was less popular then, but those who were runners still needed shoes. Places that sold good running shoes were few and far between. We probably had a better selection of running shoes in a van than any store would have because all we did was running shoes.

RL: So I guess the alternative was to buy regular sneakers at the time — probably a lot of people thought they were running shoes — at places like Herman’s Sporting Goods and the big chains.

GM: You would go into a chain and probably get a pair of tennis shoes sold to you for running.

RL: Where did the idea come from?

GM: As you know, I am a runner. I had retired from the Fire Department in the early 1970s, so I was looking for something to do. So I had this van and I bought a few pairs of shoes, boxed them, and I went to some races around town. I went to schools and to 90th and Fifth, which is one of the entrances to the Central Park Reservoir, where runners start their runs and stretch, and sold shoes on the corner.

RL: Other than the big chains, what were the options for runners to find the right sneaker?

GM: There was a running store, Runners World, in the city, but we had the truck that went to the races, where the runners are. Going to the races was probably the most important thing my wife and I did.

RL: And then what made you open up an actual physical location?

GM: We were forced to open because we had a separate telephone line in the house for people who wanted to buy the shoes and it just never stopped ringing. Running was actually going through a frenzied time; the market was developing. We opened our first store in Huntington, Long Island, in 1977, and then, the following year, our first store in New York on 89th Street and Lexington Avenue.

STRETCHING OUT
RL: Was it tough going from one store to two, as opposed to going from the second to the third?
GM: Well, we went from a truck to a local store in Huntington. And it wasn’t that we were geniuses at what we were doing, but we did have people coming from the city to buy shoes from us. It was just something that we almost were forced to do, to open up another store to meet the demand.

RL: And what was the next store that opened up after that, after the first Manhattan store?

GM: The West Side store, which is on Amsterdam and 77th. That was about two or three years later. People from the West Side didn’t want to come over to the East Side. So first we had the people who didn’t want to come from New York out to Huntington. Then we had the people who didn’t want to come from the West Side to the East Side.

RL: So, first you had 89th and Lexington. Then you had Third and 72nd. The people, I guess, from East 70th Street didn’t want to go all the way up to East 89th.

GM: Well, the 72nd Street store was originally on 68th Street. We lost our lease — the Eddie Bauer store took over the whole block — so we were out of business in that neighborhood for over a year till we found the location on
72nd Street. It’s an interesting question: How far away do you have to
be without hurting your business in one location? Runners will go further, it seems. They’re fit people that will run or walk to a location that’s not right around the corner.

RL: Was it tough making the transition from essentially your wife and yourself selling sneakers to having a retail space with employees to manage?