Chicago metro · Sneakers first
Photograph your pair. We grade it on four attributes before anyone touches it, show you the grade and the price, and let you choose the shop that does the work.
How it works
Six angles from your phone — the last one is the tongue label. We read the style code off it and fill in the model, colourway and year for you to confirm.
Four attributes scored independently. You get the letter grade and the defect list — never a bare number.
Vetted Chicago shops bid on your actual photos. You pick the one you want.
Your payment is held until the work is done and you've approved it.
The grade
A single score out of a hundred is unarguable and useless — you can't tell what it means and a shop can't act on it. So we grade four independent attributes — soles, creasing, colour, holding together — each scored 1–5 against reference photos, weighted, and mapped to a letter grade A–D.
You always see the grade, the defect list, and the photo it came from. “B / colour: yellowing, moderate” tells you something. “74” doesn't.
30%15%25%30%Structure overrides the arithmetic. A pair that isn't holding together is a D whatever else looks good, and a loose seam or a sole worn through caps the grade at C — some damage can't be cleaned away, and we'd rather say so.
Custody
The thing people actually worry about isn't the cleaning — it's handing a $600 pair to a stranger. So every handoff is sealed and photographed, the same way banks move cash.
We bag your pair in a numbered tamper-evident bag in front of you, and photograph the seal with its serial visible.
The shop photographs the intact seal before opening it. The serial has to match.
A new bag, a new serial — applied only after you've approved the finished photos.
You check the seal is intact before the job closes.
What it costs
Shops bid on your photos, so the final price reflects your actual pair — not a category average. These are the floors.
We collect pairs beyond restoring and route them to donation.
We collect pairs beyond restoring and dispose of them responsibly.
Deep clean & deodorize.
Midsole / outsole repaint & re-glue.
Complete sneaker restoration (5–7 day turnaround).
Outside Chicago?
We open a city when there's demand and a shop worth partnering with. Both start with this form.
For shops
We send you graded, photographed work with the scope already agreed. You bid on what you want and pass on what you don't.
See how partnering works