Photo by Jon Anderson.
Faye Pray opened The Barber Shop in Chelsea in July and said her customers like the manly feel of the place. Her barber pole came from Miami and dates back to 1946, she said.
There’s a reason why Faye Pray calls her hair-cutting business in Chelsea simply The Barber Shop.
That’s because you won’t find a bunch of fancy salon products, curling irons, hair dryers, manicures or waxing services there.
“We don’t do too many women here,” Pray said. “We don’t do hair curling and all that stuff. We don’t do cosmetology stuff — no coloring, no chemicals, nothing like that, no perms.”
It’s a place for men to come get a good, old-fashioned haircut — and a shave if they want.
The décor matches the manly theme. The barbers’ supply stations look like toolboxes, and instead of hair dryers, they use air hoses hooked up to an air compressor outside the back door to dry hair.
“This is a man’s barber shop, but we don’t have Playboy magazines or beer,” Pray is quick to point out. “It’s just a family barber shop where men can bring their kids or wives.”
Even though two of the three barbers there are women, there’s not a lot of girl talk, Pray said. The men who come in like to talk about shooting guns, going hunting and fishing — “things I like to do,” she said.
She loves the outdoors — going camping, kayaking, snow skiing, mud riding, dune buggy riding and any water sports, she said.
“When they come in here, they think we’re one of the boys,” Pray said.
She’s planning a customer appreciation day Jan. 9 with a bluegrass band and sportsman’s theme, she said. They’ll be cooking dove breast and deer meat, she said.
She has two TV sets in the shop so the guys can watch their sports, “but most of the time, we keep it on ‘Andy Griffith,’” she said.
The barbers give Hot Wheels cars, sodas and popcorn to the boys who come in, and they always have sweet tea, soft drinks and water for the men, she said. “We want ’em to feel at home.”
Pray just opened the shop in July, but she has been a barber for 40 years, she said.
When she graduated from Pinson Valley High School, she went into cosmetology at first, but she has asthma and realized she couldn’t breathe all the chemicals that come with cosmetology, she said. So instead, she went to the Alabama State College of Barber Styling in Roebuck.
She has worked at Master Cuts at the former Eastwood Mall, Head Start in Hoover, Great Clips in Cahaba Heights and spent 19 years at the Cahaba Heights Plaza Barber Shop, she said.
While she was working in Cahaba Heights, some of her customers from Chelsea and her fiancé, who also is from Chelsea, told her she needed to open a barber shop there because they didn’t have any barber shops in Chelsea, she said. So she decided to do it and left the shop in Cahaba Heights.
However, she injured her hand and ended up taking a couple of years off before opening The Barber Shop in the Old 280 Plaza shopping center (10699 Old U.S. 280, Building 5, Suite 8), she said.
Sandra Cleckler, a barber who formerly worked at the Buzz & Cuts family salon in Chelsea, came to join Pray about two months ago. The third barber is Larry Barton, the former mayor of Talladega who worked with Pray for many years at the Cahaba Heights Plaza Barber Shop.
Pray decorated the outside of her shop with a barber pole from Miami she said dates back to 1946. She had an electrician add a light on top of it. She also has a barber’s chair from Miami that dates back to 1946 sitting in the shop, and she plans to re-cover it and start using it, she said.
She found the pole and chair in a North Carolina barn that belonged to her fiance’s uncle, she said. They help add to that old-fashioned barber shop feel, she said.
Her lease is for two years, “but I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be here forever,” she said. “We’ve got the best customers in the world.”
To contact The Barber Shop or schedule an appointment, call 603-6323.
