In what has to be the weirdest combination of footwear and cuisine since “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe,” a new shoe-tique, Solefood, has opened with a restaurant theme (there are booths and silver platters, see, and T-shirts are presented in takeout boxes). Mike Cole (who owns the store along with Matt Murphy, the kid who caught Barry Bonds’s record-breaking home run ball and sold it for $752,000) told us the idea sprung out of a lack of customer service at other sneaker stores. At Solefood, like at a restaurant, you’re greeted at the door and “the chef comes out to talk to you about the food” — meaning sneaker designers talk to you about making customs kicks (priced at $500 and up). But wait, there’s actual food, too — at least, on Sundays, when a purchase entitles you to sit down to a dish of, say, collard greens, candied yams, and the like from local purveyors like Sylvia’s. And on Thursdays (ladies night!) the male merch is cleared out for mimosas and manicures.

Solefood NYC; 38 Lispenard St., nr. Church St; 212-941-7653.