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Franchise Hopes to Go Back to the Barbershop
By LAUREN ETTER
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.

From The Wall Street Journal Online

The barbershop business has staged a steady, if unspectacular, comeback since hitting bottom in the late 1980s. Now, Joe Grondin is trying to jump-start the business by franchising the traditional corner barbershop.

Mr. Grondin, 56 years old, opened his first Roosters barbershop in 1999, and began franchising the brand in 2002. There are now 14 Roosters barbershops open, eight more under construction and 20 under contract to be built.

But the question remains: Can the traditional neighborhood style be preserved in a franchise setting?

After all, the basic idea of a franchise is to standardize a successful business model and replicate it across geographical boundaries, allowing the brand to proliferate while keeping costs down for the franchisee. But the success of a barbershop has depended to a great degree on the barbers as individuals — not jus“They’ve gotten real tired of going to their wife’s beauty shop. And the wives were tired of having them there.”t their skills, but their personalities. Men traditionally have gone to barbershops as much for the comfortable camaraderie as for a haircut or shave. Can that personal touch work within the standardization of a franchise?

Mr. Grondin is convinced that it can. “Men like the concept,” he says. “They’ve gotten real tired of going to their wife’s beauty shop. And the wives were tired of having them there.”

The number of licensed barbers in the country climbed to more than 220,000 last year from a low point of about 185,000 in 1989, according to the National Association of Barber Boards of America, based in Arkadelphia, Ark. That is still down from an estimated 350,000 in 1960, when longer hairstyles started to come into vogue, triggering a decline in business. “Elvis and the Beatles started it,” says Charles Kirkpatrick, the barber association’s executive officer. But short hair has made a comeback, and so have barbers.

Roosters MGC Inc. is trying to re-create the traditional barbershop experience, where men go to hang out, argue about politics, chat about the weather and, while they are there, get a shave and a haircut.

Some observers are skeptical about the company’s efforts. Barbershops are “all totally individual,” says Mic Hunter, author of “The American Barber Shop,” a book about neighborhood barbershops. “If you try to franchise it, it doesn’t work. You can put a dead animal on the wall, and a gumball machine in the corner and say ‘This is a barber shop,’ but unless you know the barber, it’s not a barbershop.”

But Mr. Grondin isn’t deterred. He acknowledges that he is up against a tough task, but suggests that the advantages of franchising, careful selection of fPerhaps the biggest challenge is attracting the right type of franchiseeranchisees and a detailed set of standards will overcome the difficulties.

Mr. Grondin says franchising allows him to purchase quality goods and supplies on a national level, thereby keeping costs down. Every Roosters barber shop has cherry-colored wood cabinetry, “man-sized” leather barber chairs and wood floors. “When they come into the shop they see an upscale but nostalgic-looking barbershop,” he says. Most shops also have the traditional striped barber pole outside, although in some locations they are forbidden by zoning regulations.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is attracting the right type of franchisee. On the one hand, Mr. Grondin doesn’t want to attract a businessperson who is in it only for the money. On the other hand, a more barber-at-heart type may be turned off by the idea of franchising. Mike “Woody” Woodward, a Roosters franchisee in San Antonio, is that type.

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