Barbering birthright a cut above
HAIRDRESSING is in Lino D’Adderio’s blood.
The owner of Luigi & Sons Barbershop Ashmore and Chirn Park is living up to his father’s name and adding his own style along the way.
Luigi D’Adderio is a legend in the Gold Coast hairdressing industry.
The well-loved, now retired, barber, set up his first salon with a friend in Surfers Paradise in 1961.
He had left a very small town in Italy as a 21-year-old and migrated to Australia.
During the next 49 years, Luigi cut and shaped thousands of heads of hair.
On the way he opened multiple locations throughout the Gold Coast and built a reputation as a passionate barber.
Lino, together with brother Joey, started to follow in his father’s footsteps in 1989.
Joey worked in the Southport shop while Lino went to the barber in Surfers Paradise.
Lino said he learned from his father that quality is king.
“Also you have to treat the customer and your team how you want to be treated,” he said.
“People loved dad so much that we want that to continue with our families.”
By 2008, Lino had become an American Crew International Allstar, a title belonging to just 45 hairdressers in world.
Luigi retired in 2009 at the age of 70, and five years later Joey and Lino each established their own businesses – Joey at Q Super Centre and Lino at Ashmore.
The brothers worked under the Luigi brand name, which Lino said was integral to their success.
Lino said the biggest challenge was ensuring a steady cashflow through regular patronage, to enable staff wages and other costs to be covered.
He said the Ashmore business, owned by the family for the past 14 years, had done a brisk trade, and last year he decided to expand to Southport neighbourhood Chirn Park.
“We’d been looking for an area that had a good community feel,” Lino said.
“There are also not many barbershops at the northern end of the Coast.”
Lino said he preferred running a barbershop outside of a shopping centre.
“I think it gives the store more individuality and makes it more of a destination.”
The Chirn Park shop opened four months ago after a four-week fit-out and, according to Lino, has been wellreceived by locals.
The walls contain photos of Luigi and there are two old chairs (no longer used) that form part of the furniture.
He said both shops now attracted about 400 customers a week.
Lino said that in the future he saw consolidation in the barbershop sector with the quality establishments surviving, while the ones with poor service folded.
He said it was positive that men sought out barbershops once again, just as they had when Luigi was in business, but he was not interested in trends.
“We were doing it long before it was cool,” he said. “But that’s not to knock other barbers. There is plenty of work out there for everyone.”