Ummm. This is a strange review to have to write. The woman operating this store genuinely hates Red Wing customers and chases them out of the store. There's no more or less concise way to describes her temperament. Her pissed off attitude caught us completely by surprise. It's not clear why anyone would shop here.
We bought a pair of Red Wing Iron Rangers about two years ago, this was our first pair of Red Wings. Look them up, absolutely classic. We make furniture for a living and wanted work boots that would be classic in styling and go from shop to forest with ease, hard working work boots. We were sold on Red Wings philosophy and their claims to make boots that last a lifetime, as well as their claims to be able to repair shoes with any problem at all. Spend some time watching the touchy-feely videos on the repair section of their website and you'll be sold too.
The first thing we noticed about these Iron Rangers two years ago was that the quick rivets were cutting holes in the tongue within a few days of wearing them. Knowing that Red Wing can repair anything we didn't worry about it, and the tongue gradually got more and more chewed up. We simply assumed that the tongue was meant to be worn out and replaced, because the design of the boots and location of the rivets was rapidly wearing out the tongue. We bought a second pair about a year ago and the exact same predicament began.
We are the kind of people who buy products and clothing that can be repaired, items that will truly last and be serviceable. Again, that's why Red Wing seemed so awesome. So when the tongues were totally trashed on the first pair we went back to Red Wing's website, watched some more touchy-feely videos and figured out how to send these bad-boys in to be repaired. The Red Wing website says you need to go to a Red Wing Store to initiate this process so we found this store on the Red Wing website and took our boots along with.
After arriving at the store, she acknowledged us after about five minutes, which was a little strange because the store is about 200 square feet, so it was weird to be ignored in such a confined space. Then she had us wait another ten, she was helping other customers, no big deal, we chatted with each other, we were in a good mood.
Then she came over to the counter and grabbed the shoes out of our hands. To envision the way she communicated you need to read these quotes with your voice raised and snarl dragon breath. She didn't even let us ask how the repair process works, or what we were there for, she went straight away into berating us, keep in mind every time she asked a question and we tried to answer she would raise her voice over us to continue her tirade. She did not want answers. "You didn't buy these here!" "When did you buy these?!" "No cobbler local, or anywhere in the world can fix these!" "Are you getting the soles redone?!" "Where did you buy these?!" "When you buy shoes at a corporate location you get three things, better customer service, free laces, free repairs..." "Red Wing CANNOT replace tongues!!!" "You should have come in sooner!!" "We could have redone the rivets, that's it!!!!"
We made several desperate attempts to interrupt her to explain what service we were looking for. She would not let us speak. Her insistence that we waited too long is shear ignorance. The rivets chew up the tongue, it happens with every pair, coming in sooner would not have resulted in a magical redesign of the boots.
We finally interrupted her and snatched the boots back, told her what we thought of her and left.
Please spare yourself the stress and avoid this horrible shoe store, and the horrible woman who operates it.
PS. There are hundreds of cobblers who are happy to repair the tongue on these boots. read more