Shave and a haircut
Neighborhood barber shop abides in OKC
The Capital City Barber Shop opened on N Classen Boulevard about two years ago and has been adding loyal customers since.
An old-time business and societal institution, the neighborhood barber shop, remains a fixture in the Oklahoma City area.
Where else can one get a hair cut while talking about what’s going on?
These days, you can still find them around the metro area, if you are willing to look. One is the Capital City Barber Shop, at 1910 N Classen Blvd.
Jacob Phelps opened the shop just more than two years ago, and it serves dozens of clients daily.
Phelps came to Oklahoma City about 13 years ago to attend the Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College (now known as Randall University) as he pursued sociology degrees with the goal of helping homeless people.
But he started a family along the way, prompting him to consider other career possibilities.
Phelps said working as a waiter in the restaurant business exposed him to serving customers’ needs, which he enjoys.
Cutting hair, he said, gives him the opportunity to do something creative while he interacts with his customers.
For Phelps, the career is fulfilling, and enjoyable.
Like all good barbers, he can tell when he or one of his other half-dozen barbers has done a good job, and coaches them to look for the same clues.
“We have to do a really, really good job of reading people, their personalities and the expectations they have for each service we provide,” Phelps said. “Our goal is to make sure everybody is having a good experience.”
Plus, there are those discussions I mentioned. The more diverse the client? The better those can be.
One customer for example, he said, cleans crime scenes for a living.
“He comes in with some heavy stories,” Phelps said, laughing.
There are also conversations that happen among the customers themselves, such as a recent one Phelps remembers involving a military contractor and a freshly-elected member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
Their talk involved tax policy, Phelps recalled.
“He (the representative) did a good job of answering the questions, and the guy asking seemed pleased with what he heard.
“That was a fascinating discussion.”
Cuts start at $25
At Capital City Barber Shop, you can get everything from a straight razor shave to beard and mustache trims, hair cuts and even a little bit of color.
Each visit (it encourages appointments, but also takes walk-ins) usually takes about 30 minutes.
Phelps said there are six barbers who cut hair at Capital City, and that the shop also sells hair products and Keep it Local OK cards.
The most expensive cost for Phelps in outfitting the shop, he said, were its six barber’s chairs. His preferred model is comfortable, both for customers and the barbers.
Phelps said his clients are mainly business professionals.
Plus, the shop continues to build its clientele from nearby neighborhoods, much the same way neighborhood shops have done for decades.
“It has been fun to develop into that niche,” Phelps said. “It’s not uncommon for people to come in to get their hair cut and see one of their friends in another chair.”
Jason Liles, 42, is a Mesta Park resident with two young boys of his own who started visiting Capital City after hearing about it from neighbors.
Like most men, Liles said he remembers going to a barber shop with his brother and dad as a young boy.
“I liked the whole experience,” he said. “To me, it was going in and getting that new fresh take on how you would look for the next couple of weeks.
“But it was also about me spending some time with my Dad and brother. We always carved out that time for the three of us to go get our haircuts together.”
These days, visiting Capital City remains a family affair for him, since he takes his 7- and 4-year-old boys there to get their hair cut, too.
Liles said one thing he likes about Capital City is that its barbers offer a blend of creativity with the services they provide, which he added are topnotch.
Another thing about Capital City he enjoys is that its barbers treat him not just as a customer, but as a friend.
“Clients aren’t just a transaction to them, there’s something more relational to it than that,” Liles said. “You aren’t just a butt in the chair. They actually care about me, my boys and my family. That makes the experience a lot more enjoyable to me.”