Charles Crane/MDN Andersons D & S Bootery owner Bryan Anderson, left, will be joining his brother Art Anderson in retirement.

You never want to hear that a local business is shutting down, especially ones that have stood the test of time like Andersons D & S Bootery, a purveyor of a range of boots, shoes, and orthopedics. While it still may be bittersweet for owner Bryan Anderson to say farewell to the business that has been in his family for three generations, circumstances unrelated to revenue and supply chain woes are what he says motivated the decision.

“I’m not going out of business, but retiring. This is just a conscious decision. I turn 65 in March, so the timing is right,” said Anderson, “We’re the second oldest store down here. I don’t really want to, because I really enjoy it. I enjoy my customers.”

The business has been a part of the fabric of the Magic City’s downtown since 1936 and was purchased by Anderson’s grandfather in the 1950s. In the years that followed the bootery would pass to Anderson’s father, and ultimately his brother Art and himself. Bryan began working at the store when he was 16, eventually building off of that experience into a career managing sales in 11 western states for two shoe manufacturers.

“I’ve got a lot of experience in wholesale retail, import, export. I sold to the mom-and-pop shops and Nordstroms so I know retail pretty well from little small repair shops to big corporations,” Anderson said.

He returned to Minot and the family business in the mid 90s, and partnered up with his brother, with the shop becoming his to run when Art retired in 2016. As to what explains the Bootery’s longevity, Anderson preached the importance of hands on and engaged customer service to provide the human touch that Internet shopping and algorithm dominated apps still can’t replicate.

“The only people that are really capable of doing that is somebody like Zappos or Shoes.com. If you plug in Birkenstock into the computer, if I had an online presence, I might be number three underneath. So, it just doesn’t work,” said Anderson, “Customer service. All the things that people don’t get at big box stores, they get at mom-and-pop stores. Service, one on one.”

While the decision to wind down the business was not an easy one to make, Anderson is ready to move on to the next chapter of his life, splitting his time between San Diego and Lake Sakakawea. That said, there’s definitely something about the day to day of running the family business that he will miss in retirement.

“The one-on-one interaction with my customers is fun. I want to thank our customers. You’re always picking up new people, but we’ve had customers that have been in here that are 60, 70, 80 years old that have been buying shoes here since they were kids. You know, it’s been a good run.”

Andersons D & S Bootery will begin a retirement liquidation sale on Oct. 3, and will run for 1-2 months.