Vintage Barber Thrives on Relationships He Creates

Historically, the neighborhood barber shop was a male preserve. A red and white pole outside the shop was a universal sign that the long tradition of male grooming practices were offered inside. The barber pole might also mean, in much earlier times, that certain medical practices, like bloodletting, were offered in the belief that they could help cure bodily aches and pains.

Customers were often friends, on a first name basis with the shop’s owner. Each might have their own personalized shaving cup on the shelves, always ready for the hot lather shaves done with a well stropped straight edge razor, an integral and respected tool of barbering art. Offering your whiskered face and overgrown head of hair to the local barber was once as much a male ritual as it was a male necessity.

That’s something of what Yuri Abramov wanted to recreate when he started his barber shop in Abernathy Square, just off Roswell Road in Sandy Springs. He and his wife were recent arrivals from New York City, where he had honed his barbering skills within the closely-knit Jewish community from Uzbekistan, where he was born and lived for five years. But life in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens where more than 50,000 of what are called Bukharin Jews live can be difficult and expensive.

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Yuri Abramov, who was born in Uzbekistan, grew up in the Bukharin Jewish community in New York City.

So, he started his small shop in Atlanta with three of the heavy old ceramic and steel chairs that once graced so many barber shops. He got to know most of his clients by name, particularly when he transitioned to a daily schedule structured around appointments rather than walk-ins. He knows what schools their children attend, and how they want to look when they walk out of his shop.

Being a traditional barber shop, Abramov points out it is not about decor or how the services are offered, it’s about the relationships that he feels he has built with his customers. It helped get him through the recent pandemic that hurt a lot of smaller shops.

“Relationships have been the key to why our business continues to grow,” Abramov says. “Because if I didn’t have that, I think the pandemic would definitely have hurt us in in a lot of ways. You know, having that personal relationship puts us where we are currently, for sure.”

Jewish tradition includes the practice of Upshemish, which postpones a child’s first haircut until the age of three.

And he estimates about 90 percent are regulars who return again and again and then bring their children with them. Just like in the old days when the barber shop was a place where men could be comfortable in the company of other men, Abramov says his shop is a place where fathers and grandfathers bring children and grandchildren.

“There are a lot of men who come in and they’re a grandfather bringing in the grandson, and they make it a little outing, then they both go to lunch. Or the father comes in with the son to get a haircut and they both get a cut back-to-back. So, there is a lot of that happening. And you know, it was that way before pandemic and even after pandemic.”

For some of the more observant members of the community, the first haircut a child gets can be a ritual that speaks to the responsibilities that can come even during a child’s early years.

Abramov, who is a member of Congregation Ariel, an Orthodox synagogue in Dunwoody, is often asked to be part of what’s called the Upshemish tradition that some families celebrate for their male children. A child’s hair is allowed to grow without being cut for the first three years, but on his third birthday, friends and family gather for a festive hair cutting party.

The tradition of not cutting the side locks of the hair is also begun, and the peyot remain as a symbol of devotion to the commandments. For the first time, the child wears a kippah to cover the head and receives a small under garment with fringes or tzitzit. They are both worn each day as a reminder of Jewish religious obligations.

But even without all the religious tradition, a boy’s first haircut, at whatever age, is a special occasion for families. Abramov’s wife is now a licensed barber at the shop as well and is a part of these family celebrations, one of the many transitions that shape the lives of parents and children.

“When we have a first time, getting a haircut, it’s a family thing,” Abramov says. “The mom comes in, the dad comes in, the grandparents come in, they bring cameras. It’s a wonderful time for them and the beginning of what can be another long relationship for me.”