Downtown store puts best foot forward.

Byline: Best of . . . The Register-Guard

Normally, Team Best of ... withholds comment on whatever's printed in the pages of that somewhat misguided, if earnest, paper, the Eugene Weekly. But something caught our eye recently that cannot go unremarked upon.

In compiling its annual Best of Eugene edition, the Weekly's staff chose Miss Meer's as the city's most stellar shoe store.

Now, don't get us wrong. At least one member of Team Best of ... has dropped enough cash at Miss Meer's to prompt her husband to ban her indefinitely from the East Fifth Avenue shop. We love the place and encourage you to shop there.

However, if you really want to experience the city's best shoe store - the kind of shoe store that could only exist in Eugene - you'll have to dive a little deeper downtown, through the glass doors of Shoe-a-holic on Willamette Street. The shop is just one of several jewels in the retail crown of sometimes-mayoral candidate Lazar Makyadath and his enterprising family.

Makyadath's wife, Rosy, has run the store since 1974, when it was crammed in the back of Lazar's Bazar, a kooky kind of general store that for the past 32 years has sold everything from lava lamps to snowboards to hair dyes.

Over the next 20 years, the shoe shop established a loyal customer base and outgrew its 300-square-foot spot inside the larger business. So in 1994, the Makyadath family opened Shoe-a-holic in 11,000 square feet of space next to the Downtown Athletic Club.

Walking into the shop for the first time can be an overwhelming experience. Hundreds of shoes line the walls, stand on tables and rest on display shelves that form a kind of maze through which customers must weave. At the center is an area for trying on the shoes once you find the ones you want.

Right now, the store is pushing Crocs, those brightly colored rubber clogs favored by professional chefs, gardeners and the children of yuppies. But it also stocks athletic shoes, expensive dress shoes for men and women, boots, children's shoes, flip-flops, trendy sneakers, hand-stitched Italian leather pumps and roller skates.

Rosy Makyadath said she aims to outfit every member of the family, "from newborn to any age."

"We have shoes right now from $10 to $250," she said. "It's our goal to make everyone comfortable."

The store also sells Makyadath's signature brand of authentic Indian curry spices under the name Rosy's Kitchen. The four varieties - for meat, fish, vegetables and rice - are adopted from her grandmother's recipes.

What other shoe store offers dinner fixings with its size 10s?

For now, Shoe-a-holic has no plans to expand. But the Makyadaths' 26-year-old son, Priyamon, recently opened his own store, Origin 79, on East 13th Avenue near the University of Oregon.

Even better, he has dedicated some floor space for shoe sales from his mother's store.

Dogs barking? Go ahead and slide into the warm footbath that is the Best of ... archive at www.registerguard.com/bestof.

BEST SHOE STORE Shoe-a-holic Where: 957 Willamette St. Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week