After nearly 70 years in business at Corbin location, B&H Shoes closing its doors

Nearly everyone in Corbin assumes that the ‘B’ in B&H Shoes stands for Barnett, which is the last name of current owner Marsha Barnett. They would be wrong about that.

After nearly 70 years in business in Corbin, B&H Shoes plans to close its doors.

“My father started these stores in Somerset in 1948,” said Barnett, whose maiden name was Hawkins.

She explained that the ‘B’ actually stands for her father’s initial partner, who was named Bunton.

“They weren’t partners long. They flipped a coin, and whoever won the coin toss got to either sell out, or have the other one bought out. My dad (James Hawkins) apparently won, and bought the other gentleman out,” she explained about the history

Workers at the Corbin B&H Shoes store, Brandon Tate (Manager) Dawn Fox, Marsha Barnett (Owner), Ben Brown, Nichols Browning, Vivian Pennington, and Jenna Angel, pose for a photo. The Corbin store, which has been in business since 1961, is closing early next year.

of the store’s name. “He kept it B&H all of those years.”

Around 1961, Barnett’s father opened his second location in Corbin where it has been a main stay since.

Soon that will no longer be the case as the owners have decided to hang up sneakers for good.

The company is owned by Barnett and her two living sisters, who are all in their 70s’. They met in January before COVID-19 struck, and decided it was time to start shutting the stores down this fall. B&H had locations in five other towns in Kentucky and Tennessee.

“We are getting where we need to

While the Corbin B&H Shoes store is now located on the Cumberland Gap Parkway, it was originally located in downtown Corbin where The Caboose sports bar now sits. The name B&H Shoes can still be seen in black and white tile outside the establishment.

be gone,” she added. “COVID didn’t create our closures.”

Company’s history

Barnett got involved in the family business after she and her husband, who are both from Somerset along with much of her family, graduated from Eastern Kentucky University. Initially they planned to stay in Richmond with her husband working on his master’s degree.

Then her father called, needing a manager for the downtown Corbin store, which at the time was located on Main Street where The Caboose sports bar currently sits.

“He said, ‘If you don’t come, and I don’t find someone pretty quick, I am just going to close it.’ So, here we are. That was 1971. We have raised our kids here. It is home naturally now to us,” Barnett explained.

Barnett said that “hard work” has been the key to success.

“If you are going to be at all successful, you have to be willing to put the work in,” she said.

B&H Shoes was located on Main Street in Corbin for several years, and moved to the Trademart Shopping Center a few years after it first opened where it remained for decades.

In early 2008, B&H moved to its current location, which is a free standing building on the Cumberland Gap Parkway.

Closing for good

After nearly 50 years of working in the shoe business in Corbin herself, Barnett said she has decided to retire for good this time.

Barnett noted that this will actually be the second retirement for her.

She and her husband “retired” three years ago. He stayed that way. She didn’t.

“I stayed home for six months, and I hated it,” she said. “I have worked all my life. I love the people. I love to talk. I just love being around people. I came back. I told my husband, ‘I can’t stand it.’ I came back three or four days a week, then I started having some hip issues, and stuff like that,” Barnett said.

Barnett said that B&H owners are also in the process of closing its other B&H store in Somerset, but that it plans to keep its liquidator store there open for at least another year or so.

Plans are to take all the leftover shoes from the other B&H stores, and move them to the liquidator store.

The owners of Shoe Inn in London, have agreed to take over the B&H building, and will be taking over the Corbin location on Feb. 1. It is unclear whether the name will stay the same or change.

Shoe Inn is owned by brothers Keith and Kriston Jervis, who have owned their London store for 23 years.

“They are good Christian men. I love them both,” Barnett said adding that they might not have closed the Corbin store if the two brothers hadn’t of come along.

For the brothers, it is a homecoming as such. They got their start at the B&H store in the Trademart.

Coming full circle

“I was hired by B&H Shoes just after graduating from Corbin High School in 1983. While employed at B&H I had the opportunity to learn the business from the best, Danny and Marsha Barnett. I was employed there for 14 years. I was able to be exposed to all aspects of retail, from buying, marketing, merchandising and understanding how valuable customer service is. Kriston also worked part-time at B&H for several years during high school. So, when we were approached with the possibility of opening in Corbin and leasing their building, we were more than excited,” Keith Jervis said in an e-mail to the News Journal.

“God has blessed us with the business we have at Shoe Inn in London. He has now given us the opportunity to come to Corbin. We are grateful and look forward to continuing what the Barnett family and B&H has been doing for almost 50 years in Corbin. Both of us were raised in Corbin before moving to London and are graduates from Corbin High School. We still have lots of friends and family there and feel we are coming full circle.”

Still business as usual for now

Corbin B&H Manager Brandon Tate noted that for now the plan is to keep running the store as close to normal as possible while continuing to gradually mark down the merchandise.

“We are still carrying on our tradition of being a family shoe store and making sure to treat our customers as we always have for years,” Tate said.

“We want to continue and leave out on our legacy of being a family Christian shoe store providing quality customer service. That is what has always set us apart. We are not a big chain shoe store. We have always prided ourselves on giving our customers 100 percent.”

Barnett added that she would like to thank everyone who has shopped with the store all these years, and helped it remain successful.

There is definitely a part of her that will miss it, and particularly her customers most of all.

As far as Tate goes, he will be staying with the Corbin store managing it for the new owners.

Even though the name on the door might be different, Tate said that he wants customers to know that there will still be familiar faces there.

“It will be with the same service we left out on but continuing forward,” he added. “There may be some different items on the shelf, but are still going to have the great family here waiting on you.”