The Hagerstown Barbershop Scene: What Am I Missing Here?
While driving home from work recently, I began to notice something about the downtown Hagerstown business scene.
Barbershops.
As in – it seems as if you can’t swing a dead cat in downtown Hagerstown and not hit a barbershop. It looked like every other storefront was a barbershop. “In the Cuts”, “Clippers”, “Cape and Blade”, “Goyo’s”, “Xander’s” – there were enough barber poles and chairs to start a barbershop theme park.
I came back home and Googled “Hagerstown barbershops” – just to confirm my suspicions.
Turns out, I was right.
There are eleven (yes, eleven) barbershops located in the four square blocks that would comprise “downtown” Hagerstown.
Eleven.
If you count the barbershop/hair salon hybrid establishment – that number moves up to a staggering sixteen.
Now, I certainly understand that a barbershop provides a place to not only improve your personal grooming, but can also serve as a local hang-out spot. A place where folks from the neighborhood can gather and get a feel for the pulse for what’s going on in their community.
But, with such a high concentration of similar businesses in such a small space – are any of them making any money?
Let’s just do a little bit of math here.
Most of these places are private enterprises. Let’s just say – for argument’s sake – that it costs $10 for a haircut. I’m even going to be generous and say over a week’s time, each shop is serving one hundred customers.
100 customers per week x $10 per haircut = $1,000 per week.
Now let’s factor in utilities, rent, wages, taxes, etc. I imagine that even under the best of circumstances, no one is getting rich (and probably just surviving).
Now, take that figure and multiply that eleven times.
So, I’m supposed to believe that over 1,100 people are getting their haircut in downtown Hagerstown on a weekly basis? That over a month’s time, almost 11% of the total population of Hagerstown (based upon the 2017 figure of 40,306 citizens) is taking care of their personal grooming needs downtown?
Now, I don’t have an MBA, but I’m sorry – I just don’t see it.
What am I missing in this equation?
Someone please enlighten me.
Should I be breaking out the old Ronco “Flowbee” and start taking appointments for slots in my recliner on the weekends? Hmmmmmmmm, something tells me I’m gonna ride this IT thing out and see where it leads instead.
2 thoughts on “The Hagerstown Barbershop Scene: What Am I Missing Here?”
Once a person finds the particular barber shop/salon that they like they are generally faithful to it….I used to drive to Shepherdstown WV to get my hair cut until Harold Walter moved his salon to Hagerstown. I imagine the rents in the downtown area are cheaper than they would be at say the Valley Mall. There is also a concentration of people in the downtown area who would find it convenient to get their hair cut during their lunch time. However, like you, I don’t understand how there would be enough business for that many places to make a profit. Interesting question.
I was told by a previous downtown Hagerstown business owner that some of these so-called barber shops were the front for “other activities”. This business person was located right next door to one and commented that he didn’t understand just how this establishment was able to stay in business, due to observing the very few hours the business actually was open and that there was alot of questionable activities going on and around the shop. No facts to this, but just saying….