Bobin Nichololson

Bobin Nicholson is a native of Jamaica who arrived in Boston in the 1980s when his family relocated here from that island nation. he spent almost twenty years working in the retail eyeglass field, first as a saleman, later as a Newbury College-trained licensed optician. Until last year, he worked in the Kenmore office of the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates’ Optical Services Department, where he says he had “ a very big following.”

When he visited the Lower Mills shop for that first time, and Jack Peters asked if he would be interested in buying the business, the trajectory of his daytime work took a change for the better, he says. After some brief negotiations, Peters began his retirement in the new year, and Nicholson bought the business and set out to re-design the shop. The shop’s name, “Eye to Eye,” is an expression borrowed from Rastafari usage. “Instead of saying we, we say I and I,” he says. “My wife came up with it.” 

Says Nicholson of his new business: “This is my dream. The sky’s the limit for it. I want to meet everybody. I want to be acclimated and very active in the neighborhood. My specialty is second to none. I specialize in customizing eyeware. That’s one of the reasons why I have a lot of following. I can customize no-rim glasses in different shapes to match your face, your personality. I specialize in giving you that one-on-one care to pick out the ideal pair of glasses that works very well for you.”

Nicholson finds great synergy between his music and the dispensing of eyewear. “ I am doing both, they are both art. When you pick out a pair of glasses there’s a very artistic approach to it – just like music.”