Packer

Packer's roots go back to 1907, when Mike Packer's grandfather and great-uncle opened Packer Bros. in Yonkers, New York. The business stayed in the family across multiple generations before Mike Packer, who had been working as a lawyer, left that career in 2003 to open a store under the family name in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he had lived for about 20 years. At the time, sneaker boutiques of the kind Packer wanted to build -- curated selections, brand collaborations, a point of view distinct from mall athletic-shoe chains -- existed mainly in larger cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco; Packer bet that the model could work just outside New York City in suburban New Jersey, and the store became one of the earlier examples of the sneaker-boutique format taking hold outside a major metro core. A second location opened in Jersey City in 2007. Over time Packer built direct collaborative relationships with major athletic brands, including adidas, New Balance and Reebok, producing limited co-branded sneaker releases under its own name rather than simply reselling brand output -- a role that helped establish it as one of the longer-running specialty sneaker retailers in the northeastern US.