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Saturday, September 20, 2008
Barbershop appeals to entire family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A female customer sat in Juton Gatewood’s chair while some of the other barbers used profanity and degraded women.
Naturally, the customer took offense. So did Gatewood, 31, of Suwanee. He asked them to stop. They ignored him.
It was a straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. It led Gatewood to do what he’d dreamed of doing for some time. Open his own barbershop.
Essential Cuts, located at 5550 Lawrenceville Highway in Lilburn, has four barbers, including Gatewood.
And here’s what’s appealing about it: It’s family friendly. Designed to be that way. So when I don’t feel like fiddling with the clippers, I can take my son there and not worry about what has become all-too-common in too many businesses, not just barbershops.
Profanity-laced lyrics on the stereo. Scantily-clad women on magazine covers. And, especially in barbershops, loud barbers and customers who engage in some of the most crude and indecent conversations imaginable.
If this happens at Essential Cuts, be assured of one thing: Gatewood will squash it. After all, it’s his shop, livelihood, reputation and, in his words, his “part of America” that would suffer.
“I got kids,” said Gatewood, referring to 5-year-old Tyler and 9-year-old Juanita. “I don’t like [subjecting] my kids to a lot of stuff. My children should be able to go to certain places and not have to deal with certain types of behaviors.”
At the previous shop, Gatewood was an independent contractor. He tried occasionally to talk to the offenders about their behavior — how it looked, its negative impact on the bottom line. He wanted the guys to think about their actions from a customer’s viewpoint.
“If they took the time to think how they would feel if it were their momma or their daughter, or their kids, and someone was talking this way in front of them,” he said. “But people just don’t think anymore. It’s their mentality, the way they were raised. No respect for other people.”
Gatewood started cutting hair in his hometown of Anderson, S.C., when he was 15. He recalled a neighborhood barber who wasn’t too swift with the scissors and blade.
“This dude didn’t know how to cut any hair,” Gatewood told me. “One Christmas, I just decided I wasn’t going back to his shop. I asked my mom to buy some clippers and my God-brother asked his mom to buy some. I’ve been cutting ever since.”
He has an engineering background, but after two layoffs in one year, he decided to take another route and try something he knew like the back of his hand. Now, he owns the shop.
“It’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me,” he said. “It feels like you’re part of something, like you’ve got part of America. I just want a family atmosphere so everybody — regardless of color, race, creed or any of that — can come in, get a haircut and feel like they are somebody in this shop.”
I am somebody.
How about you?
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