Barber gets his own space — again

With furloughs, layoffs and pay freezes hanging over consumers’ heads like Damoclean swords, some business people may be more inclined to fall back than to spring ahead.

Not Matt Shaver. The Belmont barber broke down and bought his own shop after finding rents rising.

“I was a little bit scared to do it, sure. We haven’t seen too much of a downturn, maybe people stretching out their haircuts by a week or two. They still want to look good,” he said, sitting in the anteroom to his Belmont Barber Shop on Meade Avenue, a three-barber shop with the hair salon in the back. “In the end, though, with rent rising, I was able to purchase this property and have a mortgage that’s less than what the rent was. Plus, I have something over which I have control.”

Converted property

With his colleagues and cousin, Mr. Shaver has taken over a home long ago converted into a business property.

With help from his friends, he remodeled the shop, pulling up carpet, repairing hardwood floors, painting and plumbing.

“I’ve got some good friends who are in [construction trades] and they helped me out a lot,” he said. “My father was in construction for years and I learned some things, so taking down a wall to expand the barber area was no problem. We’ve got a lot of room here.”

Six years ago, Mr. Shaver left his barber chair in a downtown shop and set out on his own, opening the Belmont Barber Shop on Avon Street, near Spudnuts. He went from a one-man operation to having three chairs. He knocked down a concrete-block wall to expand and later rebuilt the wall to let his cousin, Carla Shifflett, get into her own salon.

“It was a good move, and so is this. I certainly have a lot more space,” said Ms. Shifflett, who had worked 13 years at a local salon before going out on her own with Mr. Shaver. “Matt had a chance to buy his own building and I had the opportunity to come and it felt like the right thing to do.”

Mr. Shaver’s shop is two doors down from Meade Avenue’s intersection with High Street. The busy crossroads includes a traffic light that often backs traffic up in front of his door. That’s nothing new, as his previous location was near the intersection of Avon and Garrett streets, a junction known for traffic slowdowns.

Attractive surroundings

“That’s OK with me. If someone gets stuck at the light and they’re looking around, they may say ‘hey, there’s a barbershop’ and come in and get a haircut. There are also some restaurants around, like the shop on Avon Street, so people can get lunch and a haircut,” Mr. Shaver said.

Ms. Shifflett had just set up shop in the former location when the time came to move.

Mr. Shaver hopes to attract new customers off the street, but wants his old customers to follow him down the street.

“I didn’t have a lot of time to let people know I was moving because the deal came up pretty quick,” he said. “I had a lot of customers follow me to the new location and I’m hoping they’ll follow me here.”