[Danielle Balocca]: Hey Medford Bites listeners. In today's episode, I talk with the owner of a barber shop in West Medford. Interestingly enough, the first black female business in West Medford was a hairdressing salon. Fausenia Booker was trained at Elizabeth Oliver Newton's West Medford Basement Salon before Fausenia and her close friend, Evelyn Tyner, saved up enough money to build and open their own shop in West Medford Square in 1957, calling it Fausenia's Beauty Shop. After Fausenia's passing in 2006, a short film was made about her and the other influential women of her time titled, A Legacy of Women and Hairdressing in West Medford. This information was gathered from Place, Race, and Memory, the West Medford Afro-American Remembrance Project. This book contains lots of other history of the West Medford neighborhood, and I picked up a copy at the public library. I had a really great time making today's episode, and I hope you enjoy the interview as well. All right, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm wondering if you could just introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, and a bit about yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning. My name is Donald Morton. people refer to me as he, him. Yeah, myself, I'm a 39 year old African American male, born in Boston. I'm from Somerville. And I'm a professional barber. I'm a man of many trades as well. Barbering is my thing, that's my passion.
[Danielle Balocca]: Awesome. And we're sitting here in your shop today so we might hear some of the noise of a barber shop in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. Live and direct.
[Danielle Balocca]: Exactly, yeah. So the question that I ask everybody on the podcast is just what their favorite place to eat is in Medford and what they like to eat there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well I can easily answer that one. My spot is Semolina. It's because they got a bomb bolognese. Their bolognese is amazing. And I can get a pretty good old-fashioned over there, and they give you the big cube of ice.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just that one cube is all I need. Nice.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, they were doing takeaway cocktails during the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yes, yes. I missed them during the pandemic, but every opportunity I get to go in there, I'm in there.
[Danielle Balocca]: Nice. Awesome. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what led you to be a professional barber and open this shop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I love school, but I think it started in school, high school more so. I showed up every day, but I didn't really like having the authority figure telling me what to do. I still showed up because it was fun. I liked to learn. Then after I finished school, I got right into work. I had some good jobs, but it was the managerial part of it I didn't like. Somebody telling me what to do and stuff like that. I was at Wits Inn with a job that I worked and there was a shift that I didn't particularly like which was a night shift and I was bored so I just started reading the book and I read now also was reading the magazine and I just in the back of the magazine is always a column of people that they're featuring and I seen a column on a barber who made about like 200 grand. Barbers don't make that. The next day I just called the barber school and it was on from there. I knew nothing about cutting hair. I never went to the barber shop because I had dreads. Long hair, I never utilized any services in the barber shop. But I went to school to learn it. I told myself, I knew a lot of people. I played sports from where I worked, and like the social aspect of that, I knew a lot of people. I said, you know, people are gonna mess with me. That wasn't the case though, at first.
[Danielle Balocca]: And what do you like about owning a barbershop? What do you like about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still learning. It was easier to build the barbershop than it is to actually manage and run the business because, you know, I put together put together a pretty good team, and then the hardest part is making sure that they can take care of their livelihood. That's the hardest part. Every day, so when I'm not in the business, I'm working on the business for them, ultimately myself as well.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, so figuring out how to support your staff, that feels like a big responsibility for any business owner.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't look at them as staff. I always tell people, I'm not hiring. Because if I was hiring, they'd be employees. They're not employees of mine. They're their own boss. They're independent contractors, self-employed. So I like to refer to them. I guess that would be their pronouns. Is that how you do it? Is that how it goes? Yeah, I had a purpose for this, I actually had a goal, actually I didn't meet that goal at the time that I had set for it and I almost gave up from this purpose and just moved on to something else, but it was a few contributing factors that sparked. the fire to actually get it done. Honestly, I didn't think I could, I knew I could do it, I just didn't know how, when it took.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, so what did you learn about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Learn about the process? Yeah. That money goes fast, right? If you have a budget, to work with, that's not it. You're gonna need more on the back end. And literally, it takes money to make money. That phrase is literal. Everything costs money, but you have to do it in order to move forward to opening your doors and keeping the business going, you know? And then even in this process, now like the thousand dollar The thousands are like hundreds now because you're spending them so much. The hundreds become like 5, 10s and 20s. What was pocket change is now exactly this is how much this cost it's like wow Like literally this morning. I just got an estimate for a frame from the sidewalk for the spring and summertime Yeah, and it's a custom-made frame the estimate was about eight hundred and fifty dollars said for that thing I have to make it this I'm gonna make a decision on it, but You know, those are the things.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's like those boards that you put right in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it's a custom A-frame, you don't want to go cheap, it doesn't get blown away. Like when you're walking by, that's the first thing you see, it's going to catch your eye, you know? Sure. Then you're going to be intrigued on why this is so beautiful and you're going to want to come in, stuff like that, you know?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Well, speaking of that, can you talk about the name? How you came up with the name for this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I had this name. I had this name a long time ago. I'm pretty creative, I give that to myself. Hannah got her name and stuff from just stuff like that. Hannah's one of the barbers here. So back in, I bounced around a few shops when I first started and the game was very cutthroat and very ugly and I landed I landed at a barbershop that made me feel like I was part of something, I was part of a team. And then we relied on each other to grow and be progressive. And I never had some, the barber name that I go by, I've had for years is Barack Obama. And by the time, that happened in like 2009 I believe when Barack Obama was in politics, obviously he was a politician, I think he was, you know, he put his foot in the presidential race, it could be 2009, 2010, and I wanted to come up with a design for my logo, and I'm on Google, I'm on Google, I'm putting stuff together, and I was just searching presidential stuff, and so I guess the United States, military armed forces, I want to say, if I'm not saying it right, their logo is an anchor with, I think, a serpent, a robe. It just symbolizes all the, so that was my original design. And then the commander-in-chief, the president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. So that's how I came up with the name Frontliner Fresh, because my thing was the commander-in-chief of the Frontliner Fresh. And then one of my friends asked me, what is your logo going to be? What is the mantra for the front line of Fresh? And I'm like, I never knew what really a mantra was to attach to anything. And I was like, you know what? A tailored experience. And from that, I was like, you know what? A tailored experience. You go to a tailor to get a suit, when you get your suit made, you're gonna get a tie, and that's how, you see the logo, if you look at the logo, it's a bow tie on one end, and it goes into the neck duster, which is the brush that we use to dust you off. Also, we are the front line of Fresh, the front line of how you, How you look is how you feel and how you dress. So we're on the front lines of that.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask you, what is your hope for your customers? How they feel when they come in here? How they feel when they leave?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. First and foremost, it's about being comfortable. And then the experience you get in the chair, and then some barbershop dancers. And then when you leave, you're like, you know what? You already feel like, yeah, I'm going to come back. This is where we need it. Yeah. We remember your name. You remember your haircut, and you walk by. In this neighborhood, people walk by a lot. They patron every business on this block. So you just say hi.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it's definitely a different feel. I remember coming in here versus going to a salon. I think I came in the beginning of December. You guys were watching Home Alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: And we were just chatting. I remember having a really nice conversation with you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you actually bigged this up. You bigged this up. You posted the first picture on Google. And that picture got a lot of traction.
[Unidentified]: Oh, nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you bigged this up big time. I appreciate you for that.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other feel that I wanted for this shop was people to come in and see that, walk by or come in and see that we have diversity in the barbershop. That's one thing that I wanted, that was one of the main reasons, purposes of the barbershop was to have diversity.
[Danielle Balocca]: Why was that important to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to get a different feel because I wanted to be all-inclusive. I've been in the barbershop with all males and it's a male-dominated industry and I've always said, to myself that women can do this too. Don't be intimidated, but you just have to put your foot in the dirt and just get after it. I knew my vision for the shop was to have Hannah is a woman, but she's a barber. She's not a woman barber. I don't call her, I don't say she's a female barber. She's a barber. Then there's myself, African American male. She's a Caucasian woman. Then I have another team member, Jairo. He's Hispanic descent. He's Dominican in art. He's another Caucasian male. So it's like you come in, you're like, of course the United Nations a barber.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it's nice to be able to see yourself kind of like reflected in the people that work here and knowing that they're going to be cutting your hair, they understand something about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. That adds, like the conversation piece adds to the experience as well. It's like, you know, everybody has their own interests.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What she does, you hop into that. What he does, his baseball sports is his thing. He's a father. She likes to ski. We talk about that. You know, me, I'm just like, all right, I'm all in it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy over here likes to talk about his cars. So, you know.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think we had a conversation about Catholic school and gay marriage when I was having my hair cut.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should feel comfortable having a conversation because it's also an educational experience. There's some things that I wanted you to know. The things that you experienced, I gained a new perspective on that. Even having Hannah here, I'm getting a new perspective. I wanted her to represent, and she's representing the community that she's a part of and that they're welcome to come in.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Big time.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's business.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Well, I think it's like there's some sort of history playing out too a little bit here, like opening a shop in West Medford, you're a black business owner, this is like historically sort of a black neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. I'm learning that every time somebody comes in of color, I'm learning that. Even Caucasian people would tell me as well, like pass the tracks over here. There's still black families, wealthy black families, but it was predominantly black back then, I believe. I thought I was the first white business in this neighborhood. I thought I was. But I still take that. Now that it means even more, I didn't know the history of this neighborhood.
[Danielle Balocca]: I learned that, well, I've been reading about West Medford history and there's like two women who or connected with this beauty school in Boston and then opened a beauty shop. It sounds like first in their home and then opened a salon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right. There's actually a new, there is a beauty salon, I want to say parallel to here, I want to say that side is still considered West Medford on Boston Ave. Before you pass the fuzz, there's a good friend of mine, she just opened a black, she's a black business owner as well. Gotta give her a shameless plug, you know?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, no, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it is. Yeah, this neighborhood, I never knew this neighborhood existed. And I would come down here and just ride right past it. Nothing at all. But they're very welcoming. There is my neighbor here. He's an Indian man. I got a buddy of mine on the corner who owns a tattoo shop. But I guess you could say this barbershop here is going to be bringing the flavor to the square.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else that you want folks in Medford to know about your business?
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's welcome. Men, women, children. We service everybody. You can come in, if you want to just come in and say what's up. Give us a brief history of the neighborhood if you're a local. Even if you're not, we're still going to learn where you're from, get to know your name. You know, prioritize your fresh. Protect it as well. You know, you can come in here and you can sit down and watch some of the movies we have on the television and stuff like that. You know, but, yeah. There's a, I believe, this was a gem. This place was a gem. I never knew what to look for, but this was right under my nose. I almost let it go, but I'm glad I didn't. But we're still a work in progress and that's all I strive for us is to be a work in progress. As long as they're good, I'm fine. I wake up in the morning, I'm wanting to be here.
[Danielle Balocca]: A job doesn't feel like a job when that's the... Yeah, this doesn't feel like a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say that, no disrespect, like a regular job is because we don't clock in. We don't clock in, we walk in, we sit down, we talk to one another, we ask each other what's up. You walk by, we'll wave, you come in, you get your hair cut. It's just like a social common place.
[Danielle Balocca]: And you mentioned a background in sports, right? And I noticed some of your stuff on the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still learning as well. So the wall that I have back there is, I'm not a fan of those teams. Those are just stadiums, ballparks, and arenas that I've been to. There's a lot more. So everywhere I go, I start to collect either apparel, fan towels and stuff, and I just frame them. So then when people come in, they'll be like, oh, what's that for? Stuff like that. I've been to, I travel to neutral games around the country. I've been to San Francisco, got that ball. Everything you see here. But I am a local sports fan. Bruins, Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots. You're going to see that stuff. Trying to build my vinyl wall. I have one vinyl on the wall. I'm trying to build it. It's over there.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's a nice vibe in here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, thank you. I didn't know. I went with my flow. Old school, which is the chairs, all the chairs are from, every chair has a story, but all the chairs are from the 1960s and before. 1960s, 1950s. So that's the old school part of it. The industrial feel would be the stations and the conduit piping for the electricity. And then the traditional and new school would be us. The flavor on the window. The music that plays in here, like do you see the lights? They call those the Instagram lights, but.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it that, but we need that, you know? So when you come in, you're like, I guess people in this neighborhood who knew what this place was before it was a print shop, they come in and they're like, they just stand in the doorway like dumbfounded. Wow. This place used to be, no disrespect, a dump. And I'm like, man, I must have did something really good.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm still learning. It seems like lots of people think about when they get their hair cut, it's just a place to go to get their hair cut. This sounds more like a social, you come here, you chat, you get to know each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, yeah. We're very good at remembering faces. Maybe you might need to hear your name once or twice, but then we'll remember when you stood outside, I'll be like, oh, she's back, she's coming to get her hair cut. I didn't know you were you, now I know who you are, so that's pretty cool. You never know who's sitting in the chair. You never know who's sitting in your chair, you never know who you're talking to, you never know. That person right there could change your life for the rest of your life. Rubbing elbows or shaking hands, you never know. That's the beauty of it.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's a good way to remember how to show up every day and treat people, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is. Yeah, this is a third of the team. We have Hannah the Barberess, we have Gyro Cuts. King Artie is not here yet, and I'm Barack Obama. People laugh when they hear that. You know, but.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. And it looks like you can book appointments through Instagram with the individual barbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes. I set up a platform for the team on Instagram, on Google, on Yelp, and Facebook. Primarily for them, I removed myself from that platform. I have my own individual, and I have my clientele. But for them, with a general public, the general public, when they want to book a haircut in the service, they can pick a barber of their choice, a barber that was recommended to them, a barber that they probably read reviews on on Google, and we also have, now I created QR codes that people can just seamlessly in contact list, they can just scan it and it'll take them right to the booking URL and then they can go from there as well. It's all about the information as long as you can process it and you can get it out there.
[Danielle Balocca]: And for folks who aren't familiar with the barbershop, what sort of services do you provide?
[SPEAKER_01]: Haircuts, haircuts, full service haircuts and facial hair trim, grooming, eyebrows, shaping, trimming, got children, design work, maybe some, oh, traditional head shaves, traditional face shaves that come with a hot towel, cold towel, some like, you know, product, stuff like that. What else we got going on? We just got beard wash, scalp wash, hair wash, Yeah, stuff like that, you know. And maybe some design work, depending on who wants to get a little risky. Stuff like that. And conversations, we provide that. It's pretty cool. This is actually pretty cool. I was actually looking forward to this with you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it's really cool to hear about it. I think there's a lot of spots like this in Medford that people don't know too much about, so it's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, absolutely. And you can say you've actually been in here.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got serviced in here.
[Danielle Balocca]: I got a great haircut from Hannah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice. Shameless plug again. There we go.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to make sure to mention?
[SPEAKER_01]: This was too fast. I think we should keep going.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless there's nothing else to talk about. That was pretty cool. See, I'm in the groove now. But there's more things to come. I want us as a team to do things and throw things in the community to bring people out. Ideas that we can bounce around, community things, events like kickball tournaments, corn hole tournaments, even like softball. We have so many things around us that we can utilize. stuff like that.
[Danielle Balocca]: And the Medford Brewing is opening pretty soon right down the street and there's a couple like there's deep cuts across the street some new places that could be fun to like
[SPEAKER_01]: The brewery's gonna be very exciting. That's gonna bring an entire complexity of people. I believe they were supposed to be next door to me, my neighbors, but from just the talking and stuff like that, it didn't fall through. But they still in West Medford, I'm looking forward to them. So close, yeah. What's better than going get a haircut on the weekend and going to the brewery right after that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be pretty cool, the traffic that this neighborhood's gonna get, the new faces, the diversity, the culture, stuff like that, yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: And as, you know, you mentioned inclusion a few times, and as a black business owner, is there anything that you have in terms of hopes for the city in general?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not specifically. You know, I would, Medford, well the greater Boston as a whole, It's pretty diverse. Of course I would like to see more people who look like me have and own businesses. The Square would definitely, could definitely use that. There's some spaces available that, you know, if you have a dream or a goal, you can accomplish, you can get it done. To opening a business, you can. There's a few places in this neighborhood, yeah, that we could, you know, I could use some new faces and stuff like that.
[Danielle Balocca]: You mentioned the thing about money and understanding that it was going to take more money than you thought to open a business. Is there any other advice you'd have for folks trying to open a business?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard, but it's rewarding. live it out and be able to just go through the motions. And when people come to your business, that you're doing something good. They leave and they come back. I tell them all the time, a returning client is the best compliment you can get. Everybody, Instagram is sensationalized. People are like, oh, we're getting these many likes. That's cool, but they're not in a chair. You can't cut likes. But the returning client is the most, is the best compliment you can get. It doesn't matter who likes it. A celebrity can like it, but I tell them, The locals in your clientele are your celebrity. They're the celebrity in your chair. You gotta make them feel that way, you know? There's a lot of things that you could use to, you know, synonymous to other things. And it's like, I try to tell them I'm pretty... Coach, I never, the thing about coach was like, when people would say things, I was just like, yeah, you're just saying that. Until you live it out and you understand exactly what they mean, you're like, wow, this is exactly what they meant by it. When someone's saying things, it's like, okay, all right, buddy, but then this is what they meant. Like, time is money thing. That's a real thing. And I tell them, efficiency is labor, and labor is margin, and that's time. If you can do a quality cut, and not rushing them out, it's detailed, a haircut, give them 40 minutes. If you can get them out in 40 minutes and still have a conversation, do some quality work, and then get your next appointment in on time, then essentially you're making some pretty good money. Our haircuts average, about let's say $40. Now that's to say you're good with time and you're getting a client every hour, you're essentially making $40 an hour when on loan.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was joking when I got my hair cut by Hannah, I was telling her that I used to get my hair cut at Supercuts until it closed. And I think she said, good thing it closed. But I feel like that price isn't terrible. It's a great price and it's for a much better experience. No shade to Supercuts.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, at all, at all. I mean, the prices in barbershops aren't set on the client or customer's expectation or satisfaction. There's a lot of factors for us in there, which is livelihood, material, supplies, tools. The price of our tools has gone up. Clippers cost over $100, trimmers cost over $100. You know, and you gotta get supplies to make sure that, you know, sanitation supplies, especially now with, you know, COVID and everything. And so you definitely gotta disinfect your tools, disinfect your chair. and stuff like that, so those things cost money. But people don't look at it like that. It's like, oh, you went up on price. That's cool. It's cool to go up on price, too. It tells you a lot of things, and it tells people a lot of things. If you're coming for the quality, then the price shouldn't matter. If you're coming just because, all right, it's convenient, and you're comfortable with this price, and we go up, and you don't show up, it's cool. It's okay to fire clients. They'll fire you. They'll go to the next barber who charges maybe $10, that's cool. Or $15, that's fine.
[Danielle Balocca]: When you said that thing about feeling good about yourself and the way that you look, that's an investment in that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[Danielle Balocca]: Ten more dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, absolutely. The industry is the industry. I like to say that we're probably the most appreciated and undervalued only because The fact that people would try to lowball us on the price. Like, oh, you guys are charging this much? I'll go down the street and get it for cheaper. It's like, all right, my man, go ahead. You just created a space for somebody else to come in.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, totally. Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. What else is on the docket? Let's go. Let's go. I like this thing, you know?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, we've kind of been talking around it a little bit, but like, just sort of like your identity as a black man, like how's that come up for you in the work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Ask that one more time in a way that I can actually answer it better for you.
[Danielle Balocca]: I don't know, I think about a barber shop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[Danielle Balocca]: And there's movies that have been made about the barber shop, the stereotype of a barber shop. And so I guess I'm wondering if your identity plays a role at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're right, you're right. So when you look at movies on, The screen, TV screen, and theaters, it's more so like barbershop movies is featuring predominantly African American barbers. And I have Caucasian clients and I like to ask them questions that, they're not uncomfortable, it's just that, you know, we're in the shop, we're gonna ask questions that, you know, and I always ask them, like, okay, I'm a black man, you're a Caucasian man, but there's also barbers that are Caucasian as well. Why do you feel more comfortable sitting in my chair? My guys would say, man, you guys just have a way with the clippers. You guys are attention to detail. I'm not saying other barbers of other races aren't, nationalities aren't. It's just something, it's almost like... And I was explaining to him, I was explaining to Jairo, people look at us like, and you see a black man in the streets, you know why he's, he's athletic, he runs fast, he can jump high. But as a black barber, he must know how to cut some hair. I've seen, I was in a barber shop where I was probably the third chair, and before me, from the front of the door to me, there was two other barbers, and they were Caucasian barbers, but they can cut. They can actually cut hair. And the black, a black person would come in and just walk right past him and come to me. Hey my man, how many you got? I'm booked for the day. My guys over here can cut you. You know how to cut black hair? Dude, they're barbers. They're barbers.
[Danielle Balocca]: Is that part of the training for all barbers? Cutting all types of hair?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that training you get in the real world. In school, in the barber school, to be honest with you, they don't really teach you anything. They teach you how to, you know, you pay a good amount of money. It costs some good money to go to the barber school. You do your hours. Well, the state, you gotta do a thousand hours. That's why there's barber schools. And then it's gonna cost you to go to school to get that, to do your hours. and do an exam, and you still gotta take a state exam. You don't learn how to cut different types of hair in a barber school unless you're cutting each other, the students. Even in that, students that are in barber school don't actually have the skills, they're learning the skills, they don't have them already. And you get that training in the real world. You're getting thrown to the wolves, pretty much. And then you got people like myself, or barbers like myself, with the purpose of this shop was to tig. So, like, two of the barbers, Hannah and Jaro, they're fresh out. They're fresh out of school, but most barbershops and barbershop owners would want barbers with experience. Like, they want that. However they are collecting Booth or Randall Commission, they want that money. So then you're just a body in the shop, and I didn't want that. Because I know how it felt when I finished school, and it was like, I almost stopped. I'm like, no, I'm not going to quit. And I seen that, and then I'm like, nah, it's not happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come be a part of this team, and then you're going to learn. And you're going to grow right away, instantaneously.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's great. And it sounds like when you have a barber who knows how to cut all different types of ferrets because they've taken the time to learn that in their job or somebody's helped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right. They've been in the industry for a while. They've probably worked at a shop or two or numerous shops or they've probably had their own. But the thing about that is they already have habits. You take somebody who doesn't have any habits and you show them. things that actually work, and they're making money, putting money in their pocket, and they go home feeling good, they develop good habits. Barbers like myself, you can take me somewhere, but like myself, I can go anywhere and be good because I know the result of good habits. I know the result of that, so I'll never regress. So I instill that in them, like, listen, people are gonna come in, learn their names, make them feel comfortable, have conversation, converse in the chair, all that stuff. Find a common interest. Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: There's a lot of hats that you wear here. A lot. Teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot. That's the best part about it. I'm learning as well. I'm actually learning as well to learn how to operate and run a business and help. That's huge.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no HR. I'm HR. I'm the guy. We have each other.
[Danielle Balocca]: From the way you talk about it, you've been smiling this whole time. It sounds like you really enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't wake up every morning just to come here because I have to. I love it. I could be like, hey, you know what? You guys can run it. I could just watch the cameras all day. No, I want to sit here and just It's great, yeah. Absolutely.
[Danielle Balocca]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: We gotta get you back in here.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: We gotta get you back in here, get some semolina and we can sit down and have lunch or something, you know?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, there's uh, Medford's planning like um, gay pride events this year. There's gonna be like a, hopefully like a parade and stuff. You guys could be, provide some haircuts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it gonna come through this square? Is it gonna be like, there's numerous squares in Medford.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, they're still planning it. I think starting at the high school is the last plan that I heard and kind of going through, through like Winthrop Street. I'm not really sure, like into Medford Square.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's welcome in the shop. This is what I wanted, diversity, whether it was race, gender, nationality, and however else you want to describe, everyone's welcome in the shop. It's great.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, Donald, it was great talking to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was phenomenal talking to you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Hopefully we can do this again sometime.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we're going to do it for real. We might have a live show out there or something. We got to get some pictures in. What are we doing?
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much to Donald and the other folks at Frontline of Fresh. More info can be found about the shop in today's show notes. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. And as always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.