New Mexico’s small businesses keep travel, work, and outdoor life moving. Supply costs are rising and local policies complicate hiring for mom-and-pop shops, yet the repair economy keeps gear out of landfills and money in neighborhoods. Joel Grieshaber, owner of Albuquerque Luggage & Zipper Repair, says that craftsmanship and reliability still win.
“People need us,” he says. “It is a value-added service to recycle things and put them back in service.”
Grieshaber grew up in Somerville, New Jersey, studied at Rutgers, and moved to New Mexico in November 1985. He was a musician at first, but in his second job at Libras Luggage he discovered a knack for fixing things. Within a year he launched Albuquerque Luggage & Zipper Repair and later secured the straightforward URL abqrepair.com. He and his wife Marilyn now run the shop, open three weeks each month to allow them to travel.
Clients range from national-lab engineers to UNM students, law enforcement, professors, retirees, and adventure travelers. “Failed zippers are number one,” he says. “Usually it is the slider—the thing you move up and down—on jackets, tents, suitcases, tactical gear, boots, even body bags.” He keeps the phones forwarded to his cell and answers on vacation. “People get a person, not a phone tree.”
The path felt improbable at first, but he says he found his niche. “A two-day aptitude battery says I should be a dentist. Now I work on zippers with teeth and inside bags like a mouth.” He built a regional reputation by surviving airline collapse after 9/11, the 2008 crash, and the COVID shutdown. “I retool my markets from airlines to sporting goods and the general public,” he says. “Planning, patience, and perseverance—those are the three P’s.”
The couple posts real-time hours at abqrepair.com and locks doors when needed in East Nob Hill, where he owns his shop property. “We avert danger, stay vigilant, and keep serving,” he says. Demand arrives from all over New Mexico and beyond. “I see jobs from Arizona, Colorado, Texas, even shipments from New York and California,” he says. “Search ‘zipper repair’ or ‘luggage repair’ and we will show up.”
According to Grieshaber, hiring remains complicated. “Things would need to change with laws that make it difficult to have employees,” he says, citing paid leave mandates and bookkeeping burdens. For now, they are a team of two. “Marilyn is an asset, efficient and organized,” he says. “We make the schedule work and keep the turnaround solid.”
The shop’s mission leans hard into reuse, he says. “I love recycling. I was green before green was cool.” Sentimental items bring special satisfaction. “It could be a lawyer who wants his beat-up leather bag restored for an important trial,” he says. “Campers bring 40-year-old tents and I replace the sliders to get zippers working.”
Continuity weighs on him as he nears 40 years in business. “Customers tell me I cannot retire,” he says. “I will try my best to see continuity because people need the service.” Civic life matters to him as well. “My vote is my voice,” he says. “Be informed, research candidates, and vote for the person and the platform.”
His advice to future shop owners is to “Make a five-year plan,” he says. “I achieved 90% of my first plan because I wrote it down. Then redo the plan every five years and never rest on your laurels … Planning, patience, perseverance. Keep going, keep serving, keep fixing.”
