Custom restaurant furniture
Booths, banquettes, and built-in benches. Ricardo frames them from bare wood and does the upholstery, for restaurants, bars, hotels, and theaters.
Restaurant upholstery details
Custom furniture, antique repair & handmade shoes · Washington DC · Maryland · Northern Virginia
A master cobbler's bench in Washington.
Quality you can sit or walk on!
Ricardo Villalobos has been at the bench four decades, trained in his family's shoe factory in El Salvador, in Washington since the 1980s. Bring us your restaurant furniture build, an antique that needs rebuilding, or a pair of shoes you want made from scratch.
The maker
A second-generation master cobbler
Ricardo learned the trade in his family's shoe factory in El Salvador, where his parents, his brothers, and half a dozen cobblers cut soles, formed, stitched, and finished shoes and boots.
By twelve he was traveling to Central American cities, delivering boots and shoes to clients and carrying materials and new orders back. He especially loved making cowboy boots.
He has made and repaired footwear in Washington DC since the 1980s, first at Imperial Valet, then in a shop of his own, opened in 2007 on Calvert Street in Adams Morgan, next to Mama Ayesha's.
From a 2007 letter of introduction
“For over 20 years Ricardo Villalobos has taken care of our family’s leather articles. He has repaired our shoes, sewn purses and wallets and even made me a pair of evening shoes.”
Albert J. Beveridge III, from a 2007 letter of introduction
Send us a photo of what you have, or what you want made. When you hear back, it is from the person who does the work.
Three things people bring Ricardo
Furniture & antique repair
Couches, chairs, and antiques stripped to the frame and rebuilt: new webbing, new foam, a cover cut and sewn to fit.
Upholstery & furniture details
Custom footwear
Made to your feet, not to a size: Italian leather or suede, wingtips to cowboy boots, and comfort for feet that hurt in store-bought shoes.
Custom shoes detailsHe also rebuilds boat, car, and motorcycle interiors, the same strip-and-rebuild, in marine upholstery and auto upholstery.
Send us a photo
The surest way to reach us: a photo of the piece and a line on what's wrong with it, or what you want made. You'll get a straight answer back.