Quantcast
Channel: Tooele Transcript Bulletin
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 7338

Barber school friends open new shop in Tooele City

$
0
0

Two new barbers have joined forces to open a new barber shop in Tooele City.

Fresh out of The Barber School in Midvale, Utah, Kevin Clement and Dillon Kern opened the Black Cat Barber Company in the strip mall north of the Les Schwab Tire Center on Tooele City’s Main Street.

“Tooele is growing fast. I think there’s a need for another barber shop here in Tooele,” Clement said. “We want to build a shop that really caters to the clients. From the moment a customer walks through the door, they are part of our family.”

Both Clement and Kern come to barbering after searching for a vocation they could call their life’s work. The two barbers met while in barbering school and decided to open up a shop together after graduation.

Clement, 30, used to work in the oil industry in Vernal.

“It was bust and boom and things went bust,” Clement said. 

Clement said he left Vernal and moved to the Wasatch Front because that’s where his wife is from. It didn’t take him long to land a job working for Kennecott’s railroad. He and his family next moved to Tooele.

“The job at Kennecott paid good, but I always felt like something was missing,” he said.

One day, Clement walked into a barber shop for a haircut. That’s when it hit him.

“This is it! This is what I want to do with my life,” he said. 

He enrolled in The Barber School in Midvale. He worked at Kennecott while he went to school part time. After 11 months of school, he graduated one month ago.

Kern, 26, used to sell snowboards at a shop in a mall.

“I got tired of working in a mall,” Kern said. “And I wanted to find something I could do for the rest of my life. I knew I was getting older. I loved my job, but after a while I was afraid it would be like who wants to buy a snowboard from that old guy.”

With an interest in barbering, Kern apprenticed with a friend to see of he liked the profession before he jumped in. He graduated from The Barber School seven months later.

The choice of name, Black Cat Barber Company, was a random selection from several possibilities, according to Kern.

“Black Cat might conjure up a superstitious feeling of bad luck,” Clement said. “But our motto is: Good looks bring good luck.”

The walls of the Black Cat Barber Shop are covered with bright paintings by a street artist who is a friend of the owners.

Imbued with a recycle and reuse philosophy, Kern and Clement used the lumber from the walls of the former occupant of their store to build Black Cat’s counter and benches. The shelves for hair care products and a line of Black Cat Barber Company hoodies and T-shirts are made from railroad ties and rails. Mechanic’s tool boxes on wheels are used for workstation cabinets.

The colors and media used in the shop — wood, brick, chestnut leather chairs, and aluminum roofing on the counter — impart a warm and comfortable feeling. Kerm and Clement describe their decor as urban.

Customers at Black Cat Barber Company can get old and new school haircuts, signature head shaves, beard trims, straight razor shaves, buzz cuts, and kids haircuts. Each haircut at Black Cat Barber Company comes with a hot towel and a neck shave with a straight razor.

Black Cat Barber Company sells two eclectic top-line hair and shave product lines: Reuzel from Holland and El Squanto from Pleasant Grove.

“We carry El Squanto because we want to support local homegrown-type businesses,” Clement said.

As business owners, Clement and Kern plan to be involved in the community.

“We’ve signed up to do a pop-up at a community event next month,” Kern said. “We also plan on going into Pioneer Park to do hair cuts for the homeless and helping out local school kids that need haircuts.”

Black Cat Barber Company is located at 1196 N. Main Street in Tooele City. It is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is closed Mondays. Appointments or walk-ins are welcome. Call 435-219-7898 or see Black Cat Barber Co. on Facebook.

 


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 7338

Trending Articles