Fresno barbershop brings back tradition with a proper shave and a haircut

The Great American Barbershop is reviving traditional barbershop services with full face shaves using straight razors, hot towel and lather neck shaves, massages and capping it off with a spritz of aftershave when you’re done.

Tye Featherstone opened the barbershop Feb. 1 at 9505 N. Sommerville Drive, at Perrin Avenue in northeast Fresno. He designed it like an urban industrial garage for those who have never been to a barbershop, mixing modern aesthetics with old-fashioned service.

“We’re just bringing back classic American grooming,” he said. “Just bringing back the stuff that we loved as kids.”

While other high-quality barbershops exist in Fresno, he believes none of them are doing what The Great American Barbershop is doing.

Featherstone has been a cosmetologist for more than 20 years and trained under David Raccuglia, founder of the hair product company American Crew. Over the years he came up with the barbershop’s signature style of the basic men’s taper that has a collapsed bottom and flat middle along the sides of the head, leading to a coiffed top. The result is cool and edgy yet conservative and manageable, he said.

Rather than complicate his services with elaborate pricing, Featherstone said he prefers to keep it straightforward; if a customer who’s getting a face shave wants a head shave as well, he’ll just call it a face shave and throw it in.

The barbershop has a system designed for customer satisfaction, he said, taking inspiration from fast food menus and Apple stores to capture simplicity and openness. Featherstone hired genial barbers and gives them advanced training that’s consistently updated, even sending them out for further training at places like the American Crew Academy in Denver.

Featherstone educates not just his barbers but his clients, offering free tutorials on lathering and shaving for young men. This is geared for kids who come from a split home and may lack a male presence in their lives, he said.

Featherstone said he expected his customer demographic to skew toward high school and college students, but that hasn’t been the case. Mothers have brought in their 2-year-old boys for haircuts, and an elderly man who came in and got a straight-razor shave said he hadn’t had one since World War II.

A haircut can take about 18 to 40 minutes compared to a chain store’s 10 to 12 minutes. The cost is $19.

“These haircuts should be $35,” Featherstone said. “It’s a high-quality haircut.”

The barbershop’s main target is men, but it is open to women. Most of his clients are repeat customers, Featherstone said. The barbershop is growing at about 20% a month, with promotion spreading via word-of-mouth and a discount offered to those who promote it on social media.

Kevin Medeiros, 36, came to the barbershop on the recommendation of his girlfriend’s dad. He said he bounces around among barbershops to get different experiences, but once he finds one he likes he becomes a loyal customer.

He was more surprised by how easy it was to talk to his barber than by the services the barbershop offers. It’s more an obligation to talk to barbers at other shops, he said, and it feels like he’s being interviewed rather than having a conversation.

Aaron Bump, 32, had his hair cut at The Great American Barbershop about half a dozen times. Not only was the massage and neck shave new for him, so was the haircut he was getting.

He started going because he was tired of the chain hair salon approach and found the barbershop to have a more relaxed, friendly atmosphere and it provided a chance to support local business, he said. He’s also brought his son in for a haircut, and will do so again.

“It’s maybe a couple dollars more than some of the really cheap places, but I feel you get better all-around product and treatment,” Bump said.

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Fresno barbershop brings back tradition with a proper shave and a haircut."