By Tania Phillips
Fixing “dodgy mullets” and “iso” haircuts has been a common occurrence since the Underground Barber opened in Drouin earlier this month.
The shop is the brainchild of hairdresser Kylie Hayes who runs Haze Hair By Design in Drouin with her husband – local builder Craig – doing all the building work to make the new shop happen.
“For a longtime there, there has only really been one Barbershop in Drouin,” Craig explained.
“We have a salon in Drouin and downstairs was never really used – it was a blank space. We’ve always wanted to do something with it, so we thought why not do a barbershop. Jumped through a few hoops with the council and we managed to be able to create access and a second shop front through Festival Lane and created this barbershop.
“Because it’s a double story but the top story is at street level, downstairs is technically underground so that’s where the name came from.”
So now they have a barber downstairs and a hair salon upstairs and can cater for the whole family in one location.
A little apprehensive about what was going to happen during lockdown, they took their time to create the perfect space and find the perfect staff and have now been open almost two weeks.
“In the end we said – we’ve got to do it – we will start missing out on market share if we don’t open up, so we sped towards the finish line and got it done and open,” Craig said.
“We have all our Covid protocols and all the recording is actually done through an app. We have an app so if you head to our Facebook page and hit book now you can book yourself a haircut, even though it’s walk in. All it does is put you next in the queue. So if you’re at home and you want to check out how long the queue is you can jump on there and if it’s an hour you can put yourself in the queue and head on down. As long as you’re here in time for your haircut you won’t miss it.”
He said clients can check their progress in the line via SMS, go get a coffee, go to the park and other shopping and don’t have to sit around in the shop and wait for an hour.
“It doubles up for the Covid recording and people can still check in the shop as well,” Craig said.
They have a head barber and an apprentice and are currently searching for more barbers because they have been inundated.
Find Underground Barbers at 73 Princes Way, Drouin and check them out on Facebook.
