Custom shoe business with a difficult-to-pronounce name to move, change names

She said it’s breaking her heart, but Aida Stenholm is moving her Killasumaq custom shoe store from Douglas and Hillside where she opened three years ago.

“They are amazing people to me,” she said of Builders Inc. and the Garvey family, many members of which are customers.

“They are very nice. I feel bad.”

However, Stenholm said there wasn’t enough foot traffic at the site, and that’s what she said she needs to combat a drop-off in sales due to the pandemic.

In late November, she’s moving the store to the site of a former escape room next to Dempsey’s Burger Pub in Clifton Square at 3700 E. Douglas.

Stenholm said she’d looked at Clifton Square three years ago but couldn’t find the right spot. She said she likes that the new space is visible both within the center and from Douglas.

A moving sale will start at the current space late this month. That store will remain open almost until the new one debuts.

With the move, Stenholm is changing the name of the business to her first and last name because she said Killasumaq is difficult for a lot of people to pronounce.

The name means “beautiful moon” in Quecha, a language in Stenholm’s native Peru.

The new store will have a grand opening on Nov. 21, which Stenholm said is her husband’s birthday. Brett Stenholm has been instrumental in the business, she said.

“I feel like my husband is my lucky charm.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 2:32 PM.