John Maiorino cuts long-time customer George Poirier’s hair at Professional Barber Shop, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month.
The mirror that runs the length of the barber shop is plastered with postcards and pictures – clients, friends, family. One man is smiling before and after he had his bushy red beard shorn off. Shots of a grandson show him growing up in a barber’s chair. Newspaper clippings are on proud display, too.
Over the pop music playing in the background and the constant snip-snip of the scissors, the two barbers chat with their clients about their wives, the weather and parking tickets
The conversation and the quick movements of the scissors seem easy, but then again, they’ve had plenty of practice.
John and Frank Maiorino, the brothers who run the Professional Barber Shop, are celebrating their 50th year in business at 617 Somerset St. West, near Percy Street.
They bought the shop on Jan. 31, 1961, and have been welcoming customers into their old-school barber chairs ever since. The brothers trained in a village in their native southern Italy before they moved to Canada, and they say their traditional touch is what makes their shop so special.
“A lot of people start to come back to an old-days barber shop. There’s not too many of us left,” says John Maiorino, 71.
The shop offers services you don’t find elsewhere – such as complimentary nose-hair and eyebrow trimming, or a straight-razor shave. Italian barber training requires two to three years of studying before an apprentice is allowed to pick up a razor or a pair of scissors, and only then under the watchful eye of the “boss,” he says.
“The scissors are the best way,” says Frank Maiorino. “As long as you know what you’re doing,” he adds. Electric trimmers are nowhere to be seen in the shop.
The brothers know their way around a head of hair, but it’s the low-key family atmosphere that helps make regulars out of first-time clients, the brothers insist. If they’re lucky, the regulars might even get their picture up on the mirror.
George Poirier has been a customer almost as long as the shop has been open.
“We were just figuring that out,” he says as he pays for his haircut. “I think it’s been 44 or 45 years, and I still have both my ears,” he jokes.
Poirier says he’s tried going to other places, but always ended up returning to the Maiorino’s shop.
“They just give a great cut, and they’re friendly, and I like the atmosphere,” he says. Frank Maiorino, the younger brother at 69, calls out a “ciao ciao” as Poirier heads towards the door.
While there are two other barber shops in as many blocks on their stretch of Somerset, the brothers aren’t too worried about competition.
“When you go to other barber shops, it’s all about business, they get their cut and you leave,” says Frank Maiorino. “So we spend the time, we talk, just like a family. I think that’s why we’ve been a success all these 50 years.”
There’s no evidence of competitiveness within the barber shop either. It’s less about rivalry and more about teamwork for the two brothers. While John is the older Maiorino, that doesn’t mean he gets to boss his younger sibling around, he says.
“We share everything 50-50,” says John Maiorino, gesturing around the shop. “Like any brothers, we have ups and downs, but we get back to work pretty fast.”
The striped blue-and-red barber pole out front has created one of the few constants in an ever-changing neighbourhood.
Clients are always asking why there’s a traditional Italian barber shop in the heart of Chinatown, says John Maiorino.
“I say, ‘When we started up, this was an Italian neighbourhood,’” he laughs. “Now, everybody gets a good haircut, Italian or not.”