Duluth Barbershop

"He was a nice boy. Sometimes he was moody. He was always looking for work and he was angry when he didn’t get the job. He had no money to pay me, but as soon as he got a job, he paid. He even tipped me. The hotel wanted to throw him out because he didn’t pay his bill. But I told them they shouldn’t evict him because he’s a good kid and a good actor, and he’ll pay when he has money. And he did, too.” -Barber Louis Fontana

📷: Dennis Stock
📍: DuMont Barber Shop, originally located in the

✂️ The barbershop was one of the few places in American life where a man could simply be present without any particular agenda — where the waiting was not an inconvenience but the point, where the chair beside you was occupied by someone you did not know yet and would know slightly better by the time you left, and where the conversation covered everything from last night's game to the state of the town to whatever was happening on the street outside the plate glass window.

The barber knew things. Not because he asked — because the chair had a specific confessional quality that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the combination of captivity and trust and the particular ease of talking to someone whose hands are busy with something else. Men said things in the barber's chair they said nowhere else. The barber kept what he heard with the discretion of a professional who understood that the keeping of it was part of the service.

The Barbicide jar. The strop. The hot lather and the straight razor on a Saturday morning. The specific smell of talcum and tonic that was the barbershop's signature and nobody else's. The bell above the door. The bench where you waited your turn and listened to the conversation already underway and understood that you were in a room that had been having this same conversation, in different words, for thirty years.

Some places knew who you were before you said a word. The barbershop was one of them.

Did your father or grandfather have a barbershop they went to every week — and do you remember the barber's name? 💛

Well....that's just downright cool!

Come see Shanna today and get cleaned up... You look like a bum!!! Click to book here: https://dub.sh/book-shanna-now

If you're looking for a dependable local barber with personality, professionalism and hometown pride, Thee Barbershop is ready to keep you looking sharp.

Read more about this Chamber member on the blog - https://owatonna.org/blog/thee-barbershop-local-shop-with-personality-and-professionalism/