Where were the good old days? They were here at Wards Corner Barber Shop

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Cindy Clayton | The Virginian-Pilot

By Lia Russell
The Virginian-Pilot

The haircuts no longer cost $1, but every time Norman Goodwin walks through the doors of 15 Barbers, also known as Wards Corner Barber Shop, he is transported to 1960.

"I can still see my Uncle Henry sitting in a chair. I see my grandfather, my father and my Uncle Jack."

Three generations of men in Goodwin's family got their trims at the landmark barbershop that has served Wards Corner for more than 50 years.

Now the fate of the shop hangs in the balance.

Barber Reggie Minnix worked at the shop for 20 years and owned it for the last 10. Minnix died last summer and left the shop to his children. His son, Dean Minnix, a land surveyor, and daughter, Stephanie Thornton, hope to sell the business to an entrepreneurial barber, like their father.

"Our biggest desire is that it remains a barber shop," Minnix said. "We want it to keep the nostalgia it currently has."

Minnix said he has a prospective buyer and is hopeful the business will remain.

No one is certain if there ever were "15 barbers" at the shop, but it now is down to two - Lee Gibbs and John Favazza, who say theirs is a quickly evaporating profession.

"We stay fairly busy," Gibbs said.

"If we could get more barbers in here, I'm sure business would pick up, but no one wants to be a barber anymore. Everyone is a hair stylist."

Haircuts today cost $13 - still a bargain, said Favazza.

Other than the fish tank now sitting empty and the advent of female barbers, the shop hasn't changed much in five decades, Goodwin said.

A small, knob-dial television with antenna reception sits on a dusty table in the waiting area, surrounded by troves of magazines and a complete set of "Popular Mechanics Do-It-Yourself Encyclopedia" circa 1970.

Paintings, including Wards Corner before development and the extinct Ocean View Amusement Park and Harrison's Pier, adorn the walls. Nine old-style barber chairs sit in a row. The cash register is manual.

The fish caught and mounted by former owner and barber Bob Taylor still hang on the walls - minus a few scales, which look like they've peeled off.

"He was a great fisherman," Goodwin recalled.

Goodwin fondly remembers the special "guy times" he enjoyed at the shop as a young man.

"I would love to sit in the barber chair and not say a word - just listen to what was going on around me. In one chair they would be talking about fish, and in another a guy would be talking about how large his wife was getting."

Goodwin, a professional artist, said those particular conversations later inspired him to paint a cheeky series of "big women with fish."

He bemoans the fact that there are so few male-only venues left.

"There are no more men's shops, no men's gyms, no barber shops," he said. "Now men have to go to beauty shops to cut their hair. It's a shame."

Retired merchant mariner John McGuire, 84, agrees with Goodwin's assessment. He has patronized Wards Corner Barber Shop for 20 years and doesn't want to go to a salon for a haircut.

"If this place closes, I will become a hippie, I guess," he joked.

When George Lankford was a teenager in the 1960s, he remembers 15 Barbers was constantly bustling.

"Every kid at Granby High School came here. I had a flat top and paid 75 cents for a haircut."

The short haircuts of the day required more frequent visits to the shop, Lankford said.

"I used to get haircuts every two weeks. Now I only come about once a month."

Talk there these days is less about fat wives and more about the shop's fate.

"I hope to God it doesn't close," Goodwin said. "It's a guessing game right now. We're all wondering what's going to happen."

15 Barbers: Wards Corner Barber Shop, 7510 Granby St., 588-9951.

Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com