Downtown Salem, OR 214 Liberty St NE, Suite 3 · Salem, OR
(503) 555-0142III The shop
We are not a chain, a franchise, or a concept. We're four barbers, one room, and a rule about never rushing anybody out of a chair.
I How it started
Nabil Ammari had been cutting hair for six years in other people's shops when he got tired of the timer. Twenty minutes a head, next, next, next. He worked out that if he charged a fair price and took the time the work actually needed, he'd make roughly the same money and enjoy his life considerably more.
So in the spring of 2014 he took a narrow room above a print shop on Court Street, put in two secondhand chairs, and painted the sign himself. It was, by his own account, a terrible sign. The kingfisher on it looked like a hammer. He kept it up for six years anyway — there are people in this city who still call us "the hammer place".
What worked was never the branding. It was that people came in, sat down, and nobody hurried them. Twelve years later there are four chairs instead of two and the sign is finally decent, but that part hasn't changed.
"A haircut is forty-five minutes where somebody's looking after you. That's most of what you're paying for, and we've never pretended otherwise."
II The long version
2014
Nabil signs the lease on a narrow room above a print shop with $4,000 of secondhand equipment and a hand-painted sign.
2017
Theo joins from a Portland shave parlour and the hot-towel service goes on the board. It sells out its first Saturday.
2020
Four months closed. Every regular who could afford to bought a gift card to keep the lights on. We have not forgotten a single one of them.
2022
The move to 214 Liberty St NE. Four chairs, a proper lounge, and the same mirrors carried down two flights of stairs.
Today
Four barbers, forty-five years of chair time between them, and the same rule as day one: nobody gets rushed.
III The barbers
Pick whoever you like when you book — or take the first chair free. They all cut from the same board and the same standard.
Owner & Master Barber
Opened the doors in 2014 with two chairs and a landline. Still cuts five days a week — he'd rather be at the chair than the desk.
Senior Barber
If you want a fade with no line in it anywhere, Wes is the booking. He teaches the taper class at our Monday practice night.
Barber
The one to see when you're growing it out and it's in that awkward stage. Danny will talk you through the next three months.
Barber & Razor Specialist
Came up through a shop in Portland that did nothing but shaves. Sharpens every razor in the building on a Belgian coticule.
IV What we stand behind
I
A fifteen-minute haircut is a fifteen-minute haircut. We block forty-five because that's how long it takes to cut hair properly, check it dry, and fix what you find in the mirror.
II
No senior-stylist surcharge, no consultation fee, no product pushed at the till. What's on the board is what you pay, in whichever chair you land.
III
Four-year-olds, eighty-four-year-olds, first-timers, and the man who's had the same cut since 1979. Nobody has ever been made to feel out of place in this room.
IV
Wash it, live in it, and if something's off inside seven days, bring it back. We'll put it right without a conversation about whose fault it was.
214 Liberty St NE, Suite 3 · Salem. Walk-ins from open until the last chair fills. Book ahead for Saturdays.