I have been going to the same barber for 20 years. He is an older guy, works with one other guy in a small barbershop in Cambridge, MA of all places. It is a 25 mile ride from my house.
I started going there because there was a really good Tex-Mex place where I loved going to eat, and would make it a ceremony to get my hair cut and go eat. One of those places that fry their own tortilla chips for their salsa.
My barber and I talk sports, life and politics. His magazines run from the SI Swimsuit edition to GQ and Men’s Health.
I leave him a big tip. It is an old style barbershop, they wear the tunics and all. He cuts my hair just the way I ask him to, whether it looks good or not.
My wife has been trying to get me to go to a barbershop closer to our house, so I went to one downtown to get my hair cut before I drove south to DC to hang out with the DC Chapter of Free Republic folks outside Walter Reed.
A woman cut my hair, and when I got home, I looked at it and was aghast. It looked like a bowl cut. I had to go sit in line at a SuperCuts, and a very young woman tried to clean it up, but I still wasn’t happy with it.
My town recently had an Octoberfest, and when I was downtown, I saw two new hair cutting places. My wife encouraged me to go check them out, so I walked into the first one and stopped dead. It was filled with hair stylists, almost as if they decided on purpose they had to have a plethora of minorities, and all of them looked like 20-something hipsters. Out of politeness, I asked their price, and it was four dollars more than my barber.
I walked out. Not my kind of place. I need a guy-type barber shop. It is what I feel comfortable with.