Got Cut? barbers donning face masks surround a banner outside the shop. –
On June 22, Joey Lopez should be inviting people back into his Got Cut? Barber Shop in Pennsauken after shutting its doors three months ago amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, he has to face the stress of reopening – part excitement for interaction, part wariness over health concerns – in a different venue a couple miles down the road, because his own shop was damaged by fire mid-shutdown.
Just as the sun rose on May 18, he got the call that his shop’s basement had caught fire from a natural gas leak and that the homes connected to it were also ruined. It was devastating, but not his first personal trial of the year. On March 3, 16 days before his barber shop was ordered closed along with thousands of businesses statewide, his five-year-old son went into the hospital for what turned out to be the beginning of a more than five-week stint. The problem was his kidneys, with an eventual diagnosis of IgA nephropathy, or Berger’s disease. His kidneys can’t properly filter waste from his blood. In the coming years, he’ll need a kidney transplant.
For more than five weeks, Lopez barely left his son’s side. After walking out for the day on March 3, he only went back to the shop to lock its doors to comply with the state mandate. In some ways, the shutdown was a blessing in disguise.
“It kind of worked out in my favor because I was able to focus on my son. We actually created a better bond during that time,” Lopez said.
But now Lopez needs to go back to work. For the next two to three months, while Got Cut? gets fixed up, he’ll be cutting hair at the Barbers’ Lounge a couple of miles away, a shop owned by Jibril Smitherman, who was the first barber shop owner to give him a shot at cutting hair two decades ago. Lopez has 47 clients booked in the first week.
For now, barbers, stylists, hair braiders, and other personal care providers opening up are required to meet a list of requirements. To limit the number of people in an establishment at once, appointments for all services are required; walk-ins are not allowed. Clients can’t bring guests to wait with them, except parents accompanying minors; and appointments must be spaced out to allow time for cleaning and disinfecting between customers. Space must be reconfigured, whether spacing clients six feet apart or putting barriers between them. Masks must be worn, temperatures must be checked, magazines or toys must be taken out, and customers and staff must be screened for COVID-19 symptoms before their appointment. Any customer with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 over the previous 72 hours must reschedule.
Lopez cuts his son Jose Miguel “Little Joey” Lopez III’s hair on March 3, the same day the boy went into the hospital leading to a more than five-week stint due to kidney disease. – GOT CUT? BARBER SHOP
With all the boxes to check, some are opening up more slowly. Hortense Fassu has run Elegance Hair Braiding, her African hair braiding shop in Hamilton, for 12 years. Pre-COVID-19, her small four-seat shop might handle up to 10 customers on a busy day. Monday, three clients are coming in, two clients in the morning and one in the afternoon, serviced by Fassu and one other braider. It’ll be quieter in the shop, for now.
“We used to have people bring in their kids if they’d didn’t have anybody to watch the kids. Now we can’t let that happen. I might lose some customers with that, but what can I do?” Fassu said.
Nick Ferro, barber and owner of First Stop in Teaneck, said he and his five other barbers have started to book out for the week. Monday is widely known to be part of a hairdresser’s weekend, with many salons and barbers not offering services Sunday or Monday after a typical five-day work week. But the restrictions lift Monday, so into the shops the hairdressers go.
“Everyone’s eager to get back. If it was a Sunday, I’m sure guys would be in there working,” he said.
The shutdown was particularly hard on barbers and haircare businessfolk, Ferro said, because it was hard for many of them to gain unemployment.
“That’s not something barbers typically do. Unless something severe happens and you get sick, barbers don’t typically rely on unemployment. I guess most self-employed people don’t,” he said.
On a typical week pre-COVID, his barbers averaged 40 clients a week. Multiply that by 13 and a half weeks of shutdown and the business missed more than 500 appointments. Opening up now hardly makes up for lost revenue, Ferro said, but he and his guys “are just happy to get back to making a living, which is the ultimate issue at hand.”
At Chief Barber Shop in Piscataway, owner and barber Reggie See cut hours and spread time slots to allow for safe barbering. Chief’s five barbers went from 15 to 20 haircuts a day to eight slots each, cutting the shop total of upward of 75 down to 40 each day.
“But for all of us, we’d rather ensure all our safety including our families so it’s better to start off like this than just reopening and having all the people in there at once,” See told NJBIZ.
He’s booked up for the whole week without ever having opened his book online, and his other barbers are booking up, too. And conveniently, his stations were already set up 7 feet apart—no reconfiguring necessary.
During the shutdown, barber shop and hair salon products maker Barbicide offered free COVID-19 training, a two-hour sanitation refresher course, to barbers and hair stylists. Some like See and Lopez have been posting their certificates on social media to encourage clients that they’re ready to serve them. They’ve required the other barbers to get it as well.
“Clients tend to see your routine, and that’s how I began to build my book [when I first started] – people noticed how clean I was,” Lopez said.
But it’s no longer just about washing hands and wiping down stations. Cleaning now extends to steaming capes between clients and weekly professional shop deep cleans. Lopez has hired KZO Facilities to come in monthly and fog his shop with disinfectant.
New ‘normal’
What feels closer to normal now – being able to walk into businesses, seeing more than the walls of home – is still such a far cry from what most people were used to that reopening is bittersweet for some.
“Before it was a hard job, but it was kind of fun because you’re talking to each other, smiling at each other, laughing with each other. Now, with the mask on … it’s hard,” said Fassu, who relished the company of her clients and coworkers during braiding appointments spanning anywhere from two to seven hours. “That’s how we used to hang in there and keep doing what we were doing. Now you can’t even talk with the customer that much. It’s going to be a little bit hard.”
The men’s shop at Got Cut? has motivational images and a place to play. – GOT CUT? BARBER SHOP
And at Got Cut?, Lopez and his wife had created a little community hub. Along with the men’s shop and the kid’s shop, there was a kid’s lounge and a men’s lounge decked out with games – Nintendo and Jenga in the kid’s lounge; billiards, dominos and PlayStation 4 in the men’s – for families and guests to play together. The kid’s lounge has a mural of video game character Mario hand painted by local artist Art by Sir. Lopez called the men’s lounge the 744 Lounge in honor of his late father, who was incarcerated for the last 27 years of his life and died behind bars when Lopez himself was 27. He had hepatitis C that went unchecked and untreated. His State Bureau of Identification number was 744.
“[These areas] are for them to get off their phones and interact with each other. I even have ‘no tablets’ signs on the wall. You know ‘no smoking’ signs? They’re like that, just crossing out a symbol for a tablet,” Lopez said.
All those things aren’t going to be useful right now, Lopez said. Before the fire, he and his wife blocked off the recreation areas of Got Cut?, and depending on how long social distancing and cleanliness strictures are in place, they might need to keep them blocked off even after they’re able to move their customers and barbers back to home base.
“Before, kids would come in with dad and mom and they’re in the lounge interacting with each other. You can’t even do that. I created a place where people can converse and interact and now I can’t use that space because of COVID,” Lopez said.
Some barbers remain worried about the future, including Fassu, Ferro, Lopez, and See.
“I personally am nervous about opening because of all of the other states that have opened are going back up,” See said. “The other guys are ready to get to work and I’m excited to just have some kind of social interaction.”
But for many clients, hair care is an important routine – something they do every two to six weeks, depending on hair length and style – and coming back to the chair is a welcome reentry into their own skin as they once knew it.
“I think it’s more than just getting back to normal for our clients. I think it’s more of a self-care routine that our clients have gotten used to,” See said. “Don’t get me wrong, it definitely makes people feel a little bit back to normal, but it just makes people feel good about themselves. I’m looking forward to just helping each person get through their week or weeks coming up looking good and back to being a chief.”
A chief, he said, is the most learned and leader of a tribe.
“We want all our clients to feel that way after leaving our establishment,” See said.
