Bob Ellis Shoe Store

Morris Kalinsky (1924-2010) purchased Bob Ellis Shoe Store on the 300 block of King Street in 1950. There, the store enjoyed a reputation as one of the best footwear stores in the United States with customers traveling from near and far to buy designer shoes and handbags.¹ In a 1981 feature in The News and Courier, Bill Thompson described the store’s ambiance as “exclusive, yet inviting” with décor “designed to kidnap the eye.” Writing about Morris, Thompson noted “Kalinsky is the owner and operator of Bob Ellis Shoes. But he is more. Arbiter, raconteur, a man whose sense of the appropriate bespeaks unerring taste. He is foremost a ‘people person.’”²

In 1959, Morris married Savannah native, Sybil Dickstein (b. 1936) and together they had two sons: Jeffrey and Barry. Barry later worked alongside his father in the business and continued running Bob Ellis Shoe Store after Morris passed away in 2010. The Kalinsky family closed the business in 2016.

¹ Information courtesy of Barry Kalinsky, November 20, 2024.

² Bill Thompson, “Morris Kalinsky: A Real Professional,” News and Courier, October 6, 1981, 31.