With apologies to the Witch District, with Fractal Cactus on one end and the state’s only dedicated baseball glove repair shop on the opposite, the west side of Minnehaha Avenue at thirty eighth Street must be Minneapolis’ most idiosyncratic row of outlets. Most Sundays and just a few interspersed weekdays, that’s where you’ll find Jimmy Lonetti plying his trade: fixing, restoring and selling leather baseball mitts.
D&J Glove Repair is a throwback in additional ways than one. It’s a brick-and-mortar business in an internet era, and a spot that fixes stuff when repairing anything smaller than a bicycle has largely gone out of fashion. However the little shop, a sandwich board sign posted outside at any time when Jimmy is around, points to the worth of small storefronts with inexpensive rents and the best way that sidewalks can bring people together.
D&J Glove Repair is a protracted rectangle with shiny green partitions, possibly 20 feet wide, nevertheless it’s immaculate and stuffed with tchotchkes. You possibly can tell that Lonetti spends a variety of time decorating and cleansing the place, open 14 months now, and nearly every surface of the establishment boasts some type of conversation starter, every little thing from pennants to stickers to a row of different-colored leather laces. Not that there are ever queues, nevertheless it makes the waiting area within the front of the shop a relaxed affair.
The shop is partly named for his son, Dom — thus the D&J moniker — because Jimmy got his start working on his kid’s Little League glove. He graduated alongside Dom through the ranks of amateur baseball, to fixing gloves at Highland Park High School, St. Mary’s University in Winona, and now town ball league for teams just like the Eagan Bandits or Dundas Dukes. Dom still works within the shop occasionally, nevertheless it’s mostly Jimmy that holds down the fort.
“We just began caring for his glove, after which noticed some players that had a broken string in the net,” Jimmy Lonetti said. “I fixed his teammates’ gloves, and did just a few more for the teams within the league and, after some time, a man I do know within the promoting industry made our first logo. Back then it was only a fun thing for me and my son to have.”
The Lonettis’ also share a family legacy within the leather repair business. Jimmy’s grandfather was a cobbler on St. Paul’s East seventh Street when he was growing up; the old Singer sewing machine on the pedestal at D&J is identical one his grandfather used. For me, as well, each baseball and shoe repair are steeped in romantic nostalgia, which makes Jimmy’s a somewhat special place within the Minneapolis retail landscape.
Still, I desired to seek advice from him, since it gave the impression of the type of business you possibly can easily run out of your home. Why lease out a storefront? What’s the appeal?
“Heat,” was Lonetti’s reply once I asked concerning the biggest difference from the garage. “I used to be working yr round within the garage. It was a struggle to maintain it at a working temperature within the dead of winter, and in the summertime too, it gets super hot. That is great. Plus I all the time had a bunch of my baseball memorabilia displayed within the garage, now this gave me an excuse to actually go all out.”
The result’s a small baseball museum dedicated to the Met Stadium era of Minnesota Twins history. There’s every little thing from pennants to paintings of Rod Carew to old family bowling trophies to an actual blue picket seat from the old Met. (It’s surprisingly comfortable, for my part.) Due to store, random people pop in infrequently, and because of Jimmy’s online presence, everyone knows where to search out him.
There have been other reasons to maneuver right into a business constructing. Understanding of the garage regularly brought an excessive amount of foot traffic to his back alleys, and his dog was getting irate about it. A soon-to-be retired Postal Service worker, Jimmy Lonetti is looking forward to spending more time within the Minnehaha Avenue shop, searching the big plate glass window within the front and chatting along with his landlord Eileen, who runs the salon round the corner.
One among the advantages of the storefront is the randomness. Jimmy Lonetti described how last yr’s Open Streets Minnehaha was a boon for window shopping and random connections, telling me that a record variety of “looky Lous” got here through, using word of mouth to spread the word concerning the business.
“The visibility is great,” Lonetti told me. “I get people mentioning they only drove by and didn’t know I used to be here. It’s a great spot. Last yr, Open Streets was great when it was here. Got a variety of walk-ins. I sometimes get some calls from gray-haired old ladies who want me to repair their leather dress glove or something.”
(Jimmy has fixed the occasional leather boot, but he admits he’s no good at it.)
I won’t predict an urban renaissance led by baseball glove repair. There are only so many mitts on the market, and Jimmy Lonetti looks like he’s got half the metro covered along with his services at this point. After a small little bit of research, D&J Glove Repair is likely to be the one brick-and-mortar, dedicated baseball glove repair shop within the country. (The others are invariably run from people’s homes.)
Jane Jacobs once wrote that “recent ideas need old buildings,” referring to how older buildings with cheaper rents can boost small business and innovation in ways in which recent retail spaces cannot. It reinforces the undeniable fact that entrepreneurialism is available in many forms. Judging by all of the vacant storefronts for lease in town, it’d be nice to see just a few more small businesses emerge out of the woodwork, hang their signs over the sidewalks, and produce Minneapolis’ streets to life.