John’s Run/Walk Shop will fulfill a goal several years in the making with the opening of its latest store in Hamburg, general manager Riley Marshall said.
The new store, opening later this month at 2532 Helmsdale Place, will join the shop’s retail locations in Chevy Chase and Palomar.
“We’ve been looking to go into Hamburg and that area of town for a while now,” Marshall said. “One of the things that a lot of people don’t realize about John’s is that people travel into Lexington from an hour, two hours, or three hours away, so having a location closer to I-75 gives us a better opportunity to help those people in a way where they don’t have to drive all the way into downtown.”
The growing residential base in Hamburg was also a draw, just as it was when the shop opened its second location in Palomar.
“We are thrilled to bring John’s Run/Walk Shop to the vibrant Hamburg community,” owner Melody Marshall said. “This expansion allows us to better serve our growing customer base and continue our mission of promoting health and wellness in our community.”
John’s Run/Walk Shop’s original location is in Chevy Chase. The business, which also has a Palomar location, is opening a third store in the Hamburg area.
John’s Run/Walk Shop began 48 years ago when the store’s original owner, John Sensenig, noticed at a local 10K that many runners were not wearing proper running shoes. The closest place to buy running shoes at the time was in Cincinnati. Sensenig aimed to build a place where people could be properly fitted and feel confident in their equipment.
That flagship store in Chevy Chase was joined by a store in Palomar in 2012. Sensenig retired in 2015 and sold the business to Melody Marshall, the store’s longtime accountant and a runner since age 11. Riley Marshall is her son.
John’s New Classic Shoes, a companion store that stocked more “lifestyle” shoes, opened across the street in 2002. When the pandemic hit, its inventory was absorbed into the other two locations.
“There was a massive running boom during COVID because the gyms shut down,” Riley Marshall said. “We’re still seeing that increase even five and a half years out.”
Now all three stores carry a range of shoes — from running and walking to dressier shoes, boots, sandals, and slippers. Marshall said the business takes a customer’s measurements and does gait and wear-pattern analysis to make sure it addresses a customer’s footwear needs.
“Life is too important to be worried about your shoes,” Riley Marshall said. “But I hope that when people do need new shoes, we’re the first place they think of.”
John’s Run/Walk Shop also hosts multiple weekly group runs and walks from its Chevy Chase and Palomar Centre locations. Beginning this summer, the shop added Saturday morning run/walks in the Hamburg area, with the second Saturday of each month featuring a free community 5K. The Hamburg runs and monthly 5K are expected to continue alongside the regular events at the other two locations.
“Accessibility to a healthy lifestyle is one of our core goals,” Riley Marshall said.
Another goal the business recently achieved is a closed-loop system for shoes and apparel. In July the business announced that more than 90 percent of the products it sells are part of a system that allows customers to return items at the end of their lifecycle to be reused, refurbished, or responsibly recycled.
The shoes are inspected to see if they can be reused, with gently worn pairs being distributed through local partner organizations such as Lighthouse Ministries. What can’t be given away locally is shipped to Sneaker Impact, which refurbishes shoes for resale in developing countries. Completely spent shoes are ground into recycled materials, which are used to manufacture new products.
Marshall said achieving many of this year’s goals — and having to set new ones — is a good problem to have. That success, he noted, comes from quarterly meetings to set objectives and make adjustments as needed.
“We’re very good at pivoting as a business,” he said. “We sat down at the beginning of 2020 and wrote out our goals. One of them was to be more in person with our customers. Then COVID happened. We sat down again this year and updated our goals. When we found out this location was available, our goals changed again.”
Marketing Director Matt Reno puts it another way: “When you’ve been in business for 48 years, you’ll see a lot of new opportunities, economic ups and downs, and shifts in retail trends. You have to be able to adapt while staying true to your core focus of customer service and serving the community.”