01
Walk in until close
Seven Tuesday through Saturday, five on Sunday. Not six-thirty, not "last cut at 6:15." If you are standing inside the shop before that hour you are getting cut, and the four of us will stay past close to finish the list. That is the deal a neighborhood shop makes and we have never broken it.
02
Ten-minute grace
Booked at two, in the chair by ten past. After that the slot goes to whoever is waiting and we put you back in at the next gap. Usually twenty minutes, sometimes an hour on a Saturday. It isn't a punishment. Four chairs running ten minutes behind by noon costs somebody their whole evening.
03
Four hours to cancel
Text the shop line. Don't call. Nobody can hear the phone over four sets of clippers, and the voicemail gets checked at close. No fee the first time; things happen. Two no-shows in a row and you're still welcome any day of the week, just as a walk-in rather than on the book.
04
Kids twelve and under
Twenty-five dollars flat, any cut, any chair, booster seat if the feet don't reach. First haircut gets a polaroid and an envelope for the hair if you want it. One thing we'll ask: they have to be able to sit on their own. If that's still a fight at home, come back in a few months. Nobody wins an argument with a two-year-old holding clippers.
05
Card and cash
Tap, chip, phone, or paper: all fine, no minimum, no card fee added at the counter. What we don't take is checks, and we don't run tabs. A shop that lets people pay next time ends up carrying six hundred dollars of other people's haircuts by March.
06
Tipping, plainly
Optional. Fifteen to twenty percent is what most people leave, and nobody at this shop will look at the screen while you decide. Cash goes straight into your barber's pocket; card tips go to the barber who cut you and nothing is pooled or split with the house. Ask for a specific barber and tip that barber.
07
If it isn't right
Come back inside seven days and the barber who cut it fixes it, free, no argument and no manager conversation. Better still, say something at the chair. A quarter inch is a thirty-second problem before the cape comes off and a second appointment after you've washed it and slept on it.
08
The waiting room
Two chairs at the window and a bench that holds three. Bring whoever you want, but a party of five for one haircut fills the room and the guy behind you is standing on Edgewood in August. Take your calls outside. It's loud enough in here already.
09
Days we're closed
Mondays, always. That's when the shop gets scrubbed and the blades get sent out. Also Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve after two, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and the Fourth. Anything else (a barber out sick, a water main on Edgewood) goes on the door and on Instagram the moment we know.