Best of Boston

When most shoe-mending outfits say “instant,” they mean “come back tomorrow” or “maybe next week.” But at Downtown Crossing Instant Shoe Repair, a tiny stand in the Downtown Crossing T corridor (near the Orange Line northbound platform), we’ve been known to sit barefoot on a barstool while Steve Ismintsev resoles our riding boots and replaces our cobblestone-ravaged heel taps in a matter of minutes. Given a few hours, he can rescue vintage kicks that seemed beyond saving. “It was the best I could do,” he’ll say with a frown—and hand back shoes that look better than they did the day you bought them.