Barber shops may have seen better days, but Wheeler Parker isn’t worried. Business at his Esquire Barber Shop in Summit is getting better now that short hair is back in style.
“Curls and relaxed hair hurt some barbers, but now men are going back to the traditional haircut,” says Parker, 54, of Summit. “Each style lasts about 15 years. Close haircuts are what they were wearing when I started. So I’ve stayed in the business long enough to see it go full circle.” He got his barber’s license in 1959.
Parker’s shop caters to black men, who he maintains are among the most avid barber shop customers. And he is not alone in his opinion.
“There’s quite a resurgence happening, and it’s mainly the black barbers,” says Bella Jackson, owner of Jackson’s Barber Supply in Chicago. “I don’t think the white barbers have come back. It’s exclusively the black barbers who are doing this with the close haircuts. The very close, very tailored `skin’ cut needs to be done every 10 to 12 days as opposed to every couple months.”
Not all of Parker’s customers request the latest styles, though. His three-chair shop is old-fashioned in a completely unselfconscious way, as if every object in it had found a perfect spot and been inclined to stay there. There’s a shoeshine stand in one corner, a mounted TV in another, plus vending machines that dispense bubblegum or, for $1, a handful of cashews.
The shop opened in 1960 and has moved three times within the same half-block area. Parker’s wife operates a travel agency next door.
“This is it here, this is the graveyard,” he jokes. “I bought this place.”
Without a doubt, he and the shop have become community fixtures. Parker spends most of every day, from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., on his feet, wearing his yellow smock and a visor. Though his customers sometimes travel a dozen or more miles to see him, once they walk into the shop they seem like they just popped in from the neighborhood.
Jerry Williams, a computer analyst from Broadview, explains it this way: “People treat barbers like doctors. They may try a new barber, but if he doesn’t cut hair like you want, you won’t go back.”
Williams has been coming back to the Esquire for 30 years.
