Article in Rutland Reader: Just a Cut Above: Neighborhood Barbershop Stays True to Itself

Back to home page

Just a Cut Above: Neighborhood Barbershop Stays True to Itself

(Article originally published in Rutland Reader, April 9, 2014)

RUT YOU SEE  |  By PATRICK GRIFFIN

It’s a neighborhood barber shop straight out of central casting: hand painted sign on a brick facade, waiting men reading newspapers and providing commentary, and a feeling more like a community center than a small business. Henry’s Barber Shop has been on Williams Street in Rutland since 1955 and while outside its walls Rutland has certainly changed, from inside it is hard to tell. Henry’s son Steve is the barber-in-chief these days and hosts an informal family gathering of strangers who share jokes and a neighborhood.

They found me out right away; they knew I hadn’t grown up in Rutland. Something about not being able to remember when the laundromat across the street was a corner grocery. But it was not confrontational, merely conversational. The easygoing vibe made me feel at home right from the start and before I knew it I was opening up more than I had at any barber shop I’d ever been in.

The cadence of the place is comforting.

Sure, you could go to some marketer’s version of a barber shop with TVs showing sports in your face with bubbly girls slinging hair products. I don’t think Steve would hold it against you; he’s offering a different option to follicle management that’s full of Star Trek memorabilia and dry humor. Steve allows some guys to have control of the radio when they come in, others come in every week regardless of how much hair they’ve lost.

And all the while Steve continues to swivel that old-time chair toward the crowd to ask for the next victim, stick his tongue out slightly to size up a cowlick and work on keeping the old joint going.

If you’d like to share any of the great places around Rutland that make you smile, laugh, contemplate, gossip, feel rejuvenated or just plain say “What is going on there?,” email Patrick Griffin.

Back to home page.