“After retiring from my previous business that I owned for 34 years, I wanted to try something different and bring my daughter along for the ride. I grew up in a town not too far from here that had no shopping, so I would save up my money and drive to Bay City to shop downtown at my favorite stores. When I was 18, I moved here to the east side, and I’ve been an honorary Bay City native ever since. Keeping that in mind, I was inspired to open a shoe store downtown, and with a passion for cute and quality footwear, I was able to bring back something this town needed. It has been so fun working to bring in these brands for men and women that people know and love. Birkenstock, for instance, has never been in Bay City before, and we worked really hard to get it here.”
-Lisa Wegner, Owner
“Our mission is to bring good footwear that is not only stylish but also supports foot health, sourcing quality brands to make sure our customers’ money is well spent. When you buy a shoe with a solid footbed and quality materials, you do not have to keep rebuying it each year because it lasts. We do not just point you to the shoes; we help you find exactly what you are looking for.
The name Urban East represents our urban environment on the east side of town, but what matters most is the service we give. We hope customers do not feel like just a number because we have made so many new friends and love seeing familiar faces.
Businesses like ours make people want to come to Bay City. A customer once stopped during a cross country trip looking for a specific pair of Birkenstocks. Out of every store they visited, we were the only ones who had them. They both walked out wearing new shoes and smiles. Downtown Bay City might not have been a planned stop, but now it is a great memory, and that is what makes this place special.”
-Lisa and Elyse Wegner, Urban East
“I grew up in Bay City and I’ve never put much thought into leaving. I remember coming downtown with my dad all through my childhood to get my mom a Christmas present, I could have never imagined that all these years later, for birthdays and Christmas’s we’d get to be the people helping others pick out presents that will make someone’s face light up when they open it. I think we have such a nice community down here; we have people come from all surrounding cities that wish they had a downtown like ours, a little city with a big city feel.”
-Elyse Wegner, Manager
“On choosing new products to carry, we of course listen to our customers and try to bring in brands that they want or have styles that they are looking for, but we don’t just bring in any brand we hear, the most important things to us are quality and value. We work with brands that have contracts to make sure that our prices match the company’s prices. At the end of the day, we just want our customers to enjoy our choices and come back because they are happy with their whole experience at Urban East.
Patent leather is a huge trend for this season, along with anything chocolate brown. The funny thing about trends is that nothing is super crazy, they consist of things that some people are wearing all along and never stopped wearing. I think a big thing for us is figuring out which trends are worth delving into, if it’s too crazy it’ll be gone before it catches on, but if there’s a quality way to support it, then yeah, we're all in!
Years from now, we hope Bay City will remember us as we are, a mother daughter team that’s selling cute, quality shoes. We have so many people come to us for daily wear, work wear, or travel and we always say we’ll be there in spirit. We can’t imagine how many of our shoes are in people’s homes today, so it’ll be tenfold in the coming years, and hopefully they'll remember us as a friendly face and good conversation while finding their new favorite pair.”
- Lisa & Elyse Wegner, Urban East Footwear
904 Washington Ave, Bay City, MI
