EP 19 — FOR REAL · MADE HERE
Rashad Tibbs
Owns the six-chair barbershop on Bradley Avenue
SAMPLE PROFILE — FILM SLOT
His story is coming to the series soon.
Kitchen Cuts
Rashad Tibbs gave his first haircut at fifteen in his mother's kitchen in the North End, a fade for his cousin that came out crooked in the back. By seventeen half the block was in that kitchen on Saturdays at five dollars a head.
The street money around him moved faster than five dollars a head. He watched guys he grew up with choose it, and for one bad summer he thought hard about it himself. The clippers won. Barely, he'll tell you.
I rented another man's chair for years before I owned one. Start smaller than your pride wants.
His Own Chairs
He got his barber license at twenty-one and rented a chair for $150 a week in another man's shop for almost a decade, saving slow. In 2015 he signed the lease on his own storefront on Bradley Avenue.
The shop runs six chairs now, and he rents them to younger barbers on fairer terms than he ever got. Fathers bring sons. Some weeks a kid gets his first cut and an old man gets his last one in the same chair. He sponsors a kids' football team every fall, and the jerseys carry the shop's name.