E32: VIP Café Show featuring Rick Blase from Rick's Factory Boot Outlet

https://www.twofreeboots.com/Boot Factory Outlet7336 Market StreetYoungstown, OH 44512Phone: (330) 726-8436Hours: Mon - Sat 10:00am to 9:00pm and Sun 11:00am to 6:00pmRICK BLASE (courtesy of Business Journal)It is fitting that when Rick Blase, owner of Rick’s Factory Boot Outlet, opened his business 44 years ago, he did so with hard work and a little cowboy bravado.“I started it with 72 pairs of actual boots and 500 empty boxes,” Blase says, sitting in the office of his store in Boardman.The year was 1978, and the 23-year-old Blase was a manager at Regal Shoes inside the Southern Park Mall. Having transferred to the area from Cleveland, the young Blase planned to stay a year and open a store.“Do I want to go into footwear and get a really small piece of a really big pie, or do I want to get a really big piece of a smaller pie?” he asked himself.Blase chose the latter, deciding his store would focus on boots, mainly of the cowboy variety. He saved the boxes of every pair of boots he sold at Regal and asked several friends in the business to do likewise.