Many barbershops in Northern Indiana have been reopened to appointments only for a little more a week. Some local shops are seeing a flood of customers in need of a haircut.
A lot of people have gone about two months without a haircut, so now that barbershops have reopened, people are rushing to their hairdresser.
Roger Finney has owned Family Barber in Mishawaka for more than 40 years. He says people have been excited to come back - for a haircut and a friendly conversation too.
“Last week was insane, I worked 6 days, 73 hours.”
Ethan De Nolf opened De Nolf’s Barbershop in South Bend roughly a year ago. He’s in a similar situation and has had to increase hours just to keep up with all the customers.
“We’ve been working from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. since we opened last Monday and we’ve been completely booked for all the slots.”
Finney and De Nolf both say the boost in business all at once is helping their finances, but it’ll still take several months to make back the money lost during the shutdown.
De Nolf says they’ve seen at least 70 new clients in the past week and a half, in addition to returning customers.
“We’re actually fairing better coming out of the COVID-19 shutdown than we probably would have if nothing ever happened.”
De Nolf says his customers are excited to be back and have their quarantine hair tamed.
State reopening rules require customers getting haircuts right now to have an appointment. St. Joseph County requires masks as well.
Contact Annacaroline at acaruso@wvpe.org or follow her on Twitter at @AnnacarolineC16
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