Joseph’s

They’re fast and good. Be careful though, they will overcharge you if you’re not careful. My reheeling was supposed to be $ 20 but they overcharged to $ 28. I was willing to let that slide, but the guy conveniently forgot to give me my $ 5 change. Caught myself since I was distracted and asked for it again to which response was, «Oh I thought it was the tip.»
Tip? Spurious at best considering they weren’t fully straightforward. Honesty is the best policy in business folks.

I brought in two pairs of men’s dress shoes, like new condition, and asked for a «high shine». The man told me to come back in an hour. I did. There were two men working, one on the phone, one on a watch, and one other customer. Unfortunately, there was a large wall clock in front of me, where I could watch the time creep by as other potential customers joined me.
Yes, it was a Saturday. It took, by the clock 12 minutes for the man to get off the phone, which led the watch repair guy to come over and help me. I inspected the shoes, removing them from the bag b/​f I paid for them. The shoes had some kind of transparent glaze on them, which was not like any shoe polish I’d ever seen. The glaze looked like scotch tape had been applied in random patterns, easily visible on both pairs of shoes. I asked for a redo, which he said was only necessary b/​c the bag (a standard fake cloth recycling bag) I’d brought them in had rubbed off the original polish. Both my husband and son noticed and were surprised by the uneven finish. I paid $ 6 per pair and had to redo the shoes a third time. Not even close.
MP

Do NOT go to Joseph’s if you need your leather fixed. This is the only bad review I’ve ever written on Unilocal,and I had to share because I am so disappointed in my experience — both the quality of workmanship and the overall service.
I came to the store to repair my wallet — the leather latch had detached from the main wallet. I specifically told the guy working there that I was willing to pay extra to have this wallet hand-​sewn (opposed to machine sewn, which is of course much faster) as it was my mother’s old wallet and quite a meaningful piece. I came back a week or two later to discover that he had used the machine and sewn over the ID slip, ruining/​puncturing the fine leather, and making the wallet dysfunctional. I, of course, got frustrated and asked him to re-​do it; I was still willing to pay the extra cost. Instead of taking the time to rectify the problem and hand-​sew the latch back on, however, he took the easy way out and used the machine to sew a straight portion of the latch back on; he glued the rest, so that it appeared to be fully repaired.
Again, I am not one to write bad reviews; I typically give people benefit of the doubt and am a friendly and understanding client. But in this situation, the lack of professionalism and client care was just too much. I had to share my experience so that others can avoid the same mistake I made.

I went here to have a battery replaced and see if the water trapped under the crystal of another watch could be removed. Both were done quicker than the last place I went and the fees were reasonable. Best of all the, gentleman who does the watch repair is incredibly nice. I have also had shoes fixed here and it is also great service and done quickly. I can’t recommend both of these services enough.

If you have a mechanical watch and you want their ‘watchmaker’ to actually maintain or repair it, go somewhere else. Maybe it’s because all they do is bracelet sizings, strap changes and new batteries. But their attitude was: Where it until it breaks — and this was after I told them how important the watch was to me.

i got my watch band shortened here and it took less than five minutes. the guy did a great job and was pleasant. it is nice to see people smile for once.

Joseph’s Shoe & Watch Repair is EXCELLENT!
Everyone who works there is very skilled at what they do! They have repaired everything from shoes to broken religious statues for me. This establishment is my go-​to place for many of problems. Joseph-​the owner goes above and beyond to help with the most difficult of tasks and he and the workers – especially Eli are super friendly. Great customer service! I highly recommend!

I was looking for a place to get a mechanical watch repaired after dropping the watch and the movement started having some problems. It wasn’t an expensive watch, despite its Swiss movement, so I didn’t want to spend hundreds on repair. This shop took the watch in and had it repaired the next day for $ 25. Now maybe it wasn’t a big job and nothing needed to be replaced, but I think most repair shops would charge a lot more just to open it up. Everyone at the shop seemed nice and overall it was a perfectly fine experience. I’d take watches here again — maybe not the top-​tier watches, but definitely the more affordable mechanicals I own.

This place is pretty great. I’ve taken everything to them, including my most beloved (and pricey!) items. They took the time to find and replace my Raymond Veil watch battery, which was no easy feat. And when my friend’s guinea pig took a bite out of my favorite leather jacket, they were able to stitch it up so it’s almost unnoticeable.
They’re also good at the usual– fixing and cleaning boots and heels and what have you.
For a neighborhood place, it’s what you want. And the price is right!

THE WORST PLACE EVER!
The owner is sarcastic and rude
He thinks he’s doing the best job ever, and always says
«You’ve come to the right place» …please
Overcharges for EVERYTHING!
Go to Court street, or further down Smith
Just NOT here!
Its all a scam

I had a watch that LIVED here for almost a year while they ‘fixed’ it. that antique tudor submariner is now kaput.
I decided they werent watch people (but I liked them!) and still took them a pair of hand made english brogues which are now — ruined.
Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.

I had scuffed my cream colored lamb-​skin shoes and the night before leaving town for a wedding and my boyfriend thought that rubbing alcohol was the solution to removing the scuff. Well, it wasn’t and I thought they were basically ruined from the hideous blotch the alcohol created. We brought them in the following day (on the jewish new year, of all days) and he was able to fix them that day. He had to refinish the shoes through mixing colors to get the right match. You can’t even tell anything happened.
Super quick, professional, and skilled. We paid $ 34 for the refinish which I don’t know whether or not is a fair price because it was an emergency. But worth it in this case.

I had two shoes that needed replaced soles. They did a good job with the replacement, but they didn’t bother to clean or polish the leather.

5 minutes to have a new watch sized. Also a quick battery change on my Michele watch which has, in the past, been a slightly difficult battery to swap out.
Customer service is not their foray but they get the job done right and quickly.

Excellent, professional, knowledgable shoe repair guys who know their shit. Fit me with a great insole. Thanks !

I’ve been to Joseph’s to repair watches on 2 separate occasions and had bad experiences with both. I would highly NOT recommend it, and don’t quite understand how it is so highly rated. At least with watches, I would say go elsewhere –I recommend the jeweler around the corner on Court. Much better service with watches/​jewelry there.
My first time at Joseph’s, I dropped off a watch to have scratches removed from the face, to have it tuned up and cleaned and to fix the bent pin on the side of the watch. I was told to come back a few days later to pick it up. When that day came I called the store and was told they needed 3 – 5 more business days, since they needed to order a special oil to clean the watch with. 5 days later I stopped by the shop to pick up the watch, and was told the oil had not arrived and should be there tomorrow. Two days later I picked up my watch. They had fixed the scratches on the face, but the watch still appeared dirty and the pin had not been adjusted. It looked like they had not even tried to clean it, which was the whole reason they had ordered the special oil and taken an extra week the job.
The second time was to remove some moisture that had built up inside the watch, presumably because they had not initially fixed the bent pin, and moisture had accumulated inside the watch. I was told the watch would be ready on Saturday, and lo and behold when I arrived on Saturday afternoon without my ticket, was told by the man behind the counter that I would need to wait for him to help the 4 customers in line behind me before he could help me, since he would have to go through the ‘100s of watches in the back to find mine.’ Meanwhile, I had been waiting in line for 10 minutes while he shmoozed with other customers. I told him I did not have time to wait for him to help the other customers, and even though he had told me to come in on Saturday to pick it up, said ‘this is really not a good time to do this.’ I asked him when a good time was, and he said ‘Tuesday.’ When I returned to the store on Tuesday, my watch had not even been fixed yet!
My issue is that they seem to have a very bad understanding of how long it will take to fix things, and drastically underestimate the time. Their customer service is pretty awful, and I will not be going back.

I had been going to Joesph’s for any problems with my watch for awhile. Generally clasp issues or a dead battery.
They really put on a good show as if they are helping you out but it’s all about making an extra dollar whenever they can. I don’t care about dropping money but I can’t stand people who try to take advantage and attempt to rip people off.
My new battery once had some issue just after it was repaired and they charged me $ 5 bucks to get it going again, even though there shouldn’t have been any problems. I didn’t care to storm out because in the end it’s five bucks. Another time however, after coming to them for my clasp again, they informed me they had to replace the entire clasp for some exorbitant amount of money. I took my watch back and got a second opinion elsewhere. Sure enough the other place only had to fix it and did it for a cheaper price than what Joesph’s was offering than when they fixed it.
Do not bring your business here.

They did an excelent job replacing the zipper of one of my rabbit’s fur boots. My favorite pair is ready for the next winter, thanks to you guys. :)

I used to be the kind of person who felt naked without my watch on my wrist, but with the advent of cell phones, I’d followed the bandwagon and stopped wearing one. But recently, I’d been missing that easy access to the time, especially since I’ve been biking so much. It’s just too hard to dig out my cell phone during those few seconds stopped at a light.
So I scrounged around in my dresser and pulled out my beloved old watches, hoping to slap one on my wrist and go. Silly me. After years of neglect, they both needed new batteries and one needed its scratched-​up face replaced. I couldn’t seem to get the backs off of them to see what kinds of batteries were needed, so I did a little Unilocal searching and found Joseph’s. Conveniently located on Smith right by the Bergen stop and good hours too. Perfect.
They replaced the battery in the one watch on the spot and told me the second, which needed a new face, would be ready the next day after 5:00. Nice! I was expecting a few days’ wait at least. It also turned out that both watches had weird mechanisms for opening them, as I could see by all the gadgets needed to open the one that was fixed in front of me. So no wonder I couldn’t get them open on my own, and thank goodness I hadn’t persisted or I would have ended up with a broken watch. Yikes.
I walked out ten minutes after walking in with a good-​as-​new watch on my wrist and picked up the second the next day. I don’t have much experience with watch repair, but the prices seemed perfectly reasonable to me and I’m generally a cheapo. And I haven’t had any shoe repair done here, but a friend of mine says they do good work. I’ll have to try that service on my next visit, since it’ll be a while before I’m taking this watch off my wrist again.

I’ve had two very positive experiences at Joseph’s.
First, I had a nice leather purse that was missing two rivets on one of the straps. I took it in to get those replaced and the rivets they had didn’t match the color, so they went out and bought ones that matched exactly and fixed the strap. He called me back to pick it up in 2 days and it cost $ 8 (I was expecting a lot more).
Second, I just dropped off 12 watches that needed battery replacements. He called me back 5 hours later and they were all done, set to the right time and date. They cost $ 10 per watch including the battery, which seems to be the standard price most places.
I would go back here again as I’ve had great customer service.