I may have found a keeper in my hunt for a new barbershop.
Over the noon hour I walked into the Executive Barber in the Executive Plaza next to Home Depot on 1st Ave. From the moment I walked in, I knew this joint had real potential.
There were trophy fish and a bear skin hanging on the wood-paneled wall, joined by a portrait of Nile Kinnick, a giant poster of Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch” and a sign that warned against spitting on the sidewalk. The walls are jammed with too much stuff to remember.
To say it’s a throwback would be an understatement. I nearly asked for a flat top and some butch wax. You can thumb through Playboy, The Gazette or that AARP magazine while waiting your turn. Now that’s selection.
Bill takes Friday’s off, so Greg cut my locks and did a great job. Says he’s been working there for 40 years. We talked about sports and politics and the weather, good barbershop stuff. The trip was a bargain at $13.
Thanks to the kind reader who clued me in. I’ll be back, even though I’m clearly no executive.
3 Comments
December 14, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Please update the picture of yourself so we can see how the haircut turned out.
December 15, 2007 at 3:44 pm
You’ve been called out!
http://virtualmarengo.blogspot.com/2007/12/our-secret-agenda.html
December 17, 2007 at 2:06 am
I’ve been going to the Executive Barbershop for about 7 years now. It truly is a man’s barbershop – forget those salons! There is much, much more to this barbershop. Greg and Bill have a place that means more to people and the city than one would think a barbershop can offer.
Friendship abounds while they have customers that have been getting their ever decreasing locks cut there for decades. You can tell that some of the elder gentlemen go to this shop to see old friends, a connection to their lives long ago. A book or movie could be made about the wonderful atmosphere reminiscent of years ago.
Greg and Bill are something else! As you said, they’ve been there for 40 years and really the place looks like a throwback to the 60s – simples times, simples talk, simple life. When the place is filled, you get an earfull of “manly” joking and stories as well as fishing and sports stories!
I’ve taken my 6 year old son there since his first haircut, and will soon be taking my 2nd son there this week for the first time (a baby’s first haircut is free by the way).
The city will have a significant loss when Greg and Bill retire!