Aryn Sanderson
asanderson@mustangdaily.net
Gray hairs fall to the black-and-white checkered floor.
“Have you been to the gym yet today?” Eva Pierson, a barber at University Barber Shop on Foothill Boulevard, asks the man in her chair, her voice ringing out over the background hum of sports on TV.
“He’s what, 90-years old? And he goes to the gym twice a day,” Pierson explains after her customer hobbled out of the shop. “He wakes up, eats his breakfast, goes to the gym, rests, goes back to the gym. He used to be a bodybuilder, and you can still see it, even in the way he uses that walker.”
It’s not unusual for Pierson, or any of the University Barber Shop barbers, to know details of customers’ lives.
“We share pictures, families, grief,” Pierson said. “Sometimes I leave work with tears in my eyes from their stories — we’ve had some customers die lately, and it’s hard — but I’m so thankful I get to know all these people.”
At University Barber Shop, customers become family.
The barbers agree that getting to know their clients is the best part of the job.
“There are barbers here that could’ve long retired, but they stay because we love it,” Pierson said.
Richard Beamon, a barber for more than 50 years, is one of those barbers.
“The Poly kids come in when they first get here, and they’re scared and nervous, and when they leave, they know everything,” he said. “It’s kind of like watching your family grow up.”
This familial feel isn’t lost on the clientele.
Music sophomore Tyler Miller said the charms of a traditional barbershop drew him in.
“I tell my friends about this place because it’s a pretty good price for just a cut,” Miller said. “And it’s got that old-timey barbershop feel.”
Owner John Philips said the barbershop has an old-time vibe because it is old-time.
University Barber Shop is a throwback to the past, a historical landmark in its own right. Prominent ranching families used to get haircuts here. These include the famous Alex Madonna and, more recently, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped by for a trim.
“This barbershop’s been here since 1957,” said Philips, who took ownership in 1965. “And we just keep reupholstering the chairs.”
In the 48 years Philips has owned the shop, not much has changed aside from the color of the paint on the sign and the amount of historical photographs covering the walls.
But that’s just how the customers like it: traditional values in a traditional barbershop.