Today we’d like to introduce you to Gary Barnhart.
Hi Gary, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Yes, absolutely! First off, thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be here.
I was born here in Dallas, but I was raised in a small town outside of Tyler in East Texas called Mineola. My parents were from Mesquite and liked the appeal of raising a family in a more close knit community. My father passed away in 1995 when I was 8. After that, my mother worked in medical billing and did her best to support the two of us by herself. I graduated from Mineola High School in 2005 and like most people was unsure of what to do with myself or with my life. I went to Richland Community College for 2 years without much luck finding a career path. During that time I worked a number of service industry jobs.
I started my path as a barber when I was 20. I wanted a job that would give me a lot of freedom. One that didn’t dictate what I wore or how I looked, what I talked about, how I worked, or really anything else about my work or personal life. I also wanted something that would satisfy my creative passion. A friend of mine at the time had been going to a barber and suggested I look into becoming one. Looking back, I think he just wanted a friend that was a barber so he could get free haircuts. I thought it sounded interesting so I looked into it. Becoming a barber in Texas at that time required 1,500 hours at a barber school, and two state exams. I found Texas Barber College in Dallas and enrolled. There I quickly became friends with Marcus Irving. We bonded over both being Sagittarius (most of us do). He’s nine years older than I am and had worked a number of jobs that he didn’t love. He helped instill the pride I carry with me today for being a barber. Thank you for being my friend, Marcus! He grew up in Garland going to barbers and always had a deep respect and appreciation for their work. If you’re ever in Garland and looking for the best cut around, go check him out at D’SHOP
After I completed the 1,500 hours and took my state exams, I earned my Class A Barber License. I had been visiting Denton to see friends and fell in love with the town, so I moved there to start my career.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think most of our paths in the industry are riddled with hardships. People often think that barber shops don’t have as many issues as salons and I never understood why.
The path had its challenges almost immediately, and they haven’t exactly stopped since. I had multiple friends who didn’t see it as a viable career path. One friend, Joseph Ramirez, expressed disappointment directly to me which sparked a career long mission to prove him and anyone who felt the same wrong. In the same breath gave me some of the best advice I’ve also carried with me through my career. He encouraged me to be the absolute best that I could possibly be at whatever career path I chose. Thank you for being my friend, Joseph!
My first licensed job, like most of us in this industry, was at a chain salon. While I was working there I was told by a manager that I wasn’t allowed to use certain types of clippers. When I asked why, it was explained that all the people at the store use the same equipment for uniformity. I asked what would happen if I continued to use them. They said I would be written up. I told them to go get the paper and write me up right then. They never wrote me up, but Il only worked there for a few months.
While working there I met Keyth Talley, who was running track for UNT. I would go over to Victory Hall after work and cut hair in the lobby. He introduced me to his team mates, as well as some of the UNT basketball and football teams players who became my first clientele in Denton. Thank you for being my friend, Keyth! They told me about the barbershops they’d heard of in town, so I started looking for them. I found Andy’s Hair Spot and landed my first job as a licensed barber in an independently owned barbershop.
I met a barber there who was a self proclaimed “evangelical end times prophet”. He would prophesy in the barbershop. He had a friend who would come in sometimes with poetry he had written who called himself an apostle. My friends didn’t believe me, so I got permission from the owner and all the barbers to start recording video of it happening. I had planned on starting a youtube series of funny things being said or happening in the barbershop. That was cut short because the prophet ended up destroying my camera in a rage after only a few days of filming. I still don’t know exactly why he did it, but I suspected at the time that he was worried that the people he would gossip about would end up seeing videos of him talking about them. Thanks for giving me a chance Andy!
When I left there I went to find the other shops I’d heard of from the track team and football players. I ended up finding Jenesis Barbershop by TWU. I walked in, introduced myself, and explained that I was looking for an open chair. I pulled up my portfolio to show examples of my work and the owner told me to put it away. He’d already heard of me and knew I did good work. He told me I could start working that day if I wanted. I started the next day and saw the apostle was also a barber there.
The apostle would preach for hours on end during the busiest days in the shop. He would point to me as an example of demons and ungodly things. One day while I was keeping the shop owner’s toddler entertained, a client’s toddler came over to see what we were doing. The apostle encouraged the client to call his son away from me because I “wasn’t right” and “wasn’t with God”. I tried to explain that I was simply keeping his son from being bored but got cut off by the apostle yelling “the blood of Jesus” at me over and over. Eventually the shop owner let the apostle go. Not over this situation, but after working next to him for a few months.
That shop moved to a different location and changed ownership. The change of ownership caused all of the barbers to leave except for me. The new owner rebranded the shop twice, eventually landing on naming it after himself. By that time I was pretty burnt out. I was 6 or 7 pretty rough years into my career. I had become very disenchanted with my career choice. My work ethic was terrible. I ended up getting fired over late fees for being late on my booth rent. I went to work at a shop across the parking lot. My clients would come in and tell me that the barbers at the old shop told them they had no idea where I’d gone.
I worked at this shop for a few weeks. One of my clients told me about a mobile shop that had just opened in town by a husband and wife. He gave me the number of the owners and encouraged me to reach out to see if they were hiring. At first they weren’t because it was just a one chair mobile shop and the wife was able to work without any issues. A few days later I got a call back asking if I was still interested because they had just found out she was pregnant with their third and she was unable to continue to work around the smells in the shop (they were causing her to get sick). They had only been open for a week or two and they were worried they were going to have to close after investing all their money into this business. The shift was similar to bar shifts – 6pm to 2am. It was parked behind a bar, after all. It seemed a little crazy at first but I thought it would be fun and I was willing to take a chance on something new that could reignite any passion I had left for my career.
My first night I ended up having 14 or 15 people in my chair. The bar owner had sent out a text to the group chat that I was working that night and to send people my way. Thank you for being my friend, John Williams. The owners were shocked and thrilled. They had only had 4 or 5 people total during a shift so far. I was working at one shop during the day and at this shop at night for a week until they asked if I only wanted to work there.
I worked as the only barber there taking walk ins 6 days a week from 6pm to 2am. After 6 months, the Best of Denton awards ran and we ended up winning. We won for the next 5 years. A year and a half into business, their friend came to them with an idea. He was opening a vape shop on the square in Denton. There was a small room in the back that would be perfect for a tiny barbershop. We opened a two chair shop inside the vape shop and still ran the mobile shop behind the bar. The vape shop didn’t work out, so the barbershop ended up taking over the whole space. After some time, one of the barbers opened a third location as an affiliated shop.
The pandemic affected everyone. The whole beauty and service industry was hit hard in a very specific way. We can’t work without physically interacting with the public and being close to them. By the time the pandemic hit, I was a co-owner of the shop. I had done training for the shop, hiring, firing, day to day operations, anything you could think of, I’d done it. The other owners had moved states away and refused to be helpful in any way. I was making decisions on how to run the business by taking the best interests of the barbers into account, and in some circumstances asking them all to take a vote on best practices moving forward.
Once all of that had passed and the business was stable, the co-owners decided that I didn’t deserve co-ownership anymore. They took a percentage of my ownership and gave it to their friend who also worked in the shop. They told me that if I had a problem with it, they would drive to Texas at 100mph and everything would end very differently for me. I accepted the terms because I didn’t see the point in fighting. I started telling the staff that I was going to have to leave and find another place to work. They all asked me where I was going and if there was going to be a chance there were other chairs available. None of them wanted to work with the co-owners. I coordinated with the affiliate shop to add stations to house the staff from both shops. We made the affiliate shop independent of the previous business after all the staff had moved over. The next month the previous business closed and I was offered a lease at the previous location. I accepted and began renovation and rebranding of the old location.
When I was very close to finishing renovations of the shop, the affiliate shop owner was arrested under allegations that were so extreme we all had to immediately cut all ties. We were all devastated, and moved as fast as we could to finish renovations and move from the previously affiliated location.
On August 8th, 2022 Barnhart’s Barbershop opened on the square in downtown Denton, Tx.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My shop specializes in short hair cuts (clipper cuts), long haircuts, beards, and gender-affirming hair styles. We are known as one of the few queer forward barber shops in our town. There are also lots of queer forward salons and hair spaces in town, but we’re one of the few, if not the only, who operate as a barber shop. I’m most proud of my staff. They are all so talented, warm, and amazing people. We are proud to be a safe and welcoming shop for the queer community, the Denton community, and the greater DFW community. What sets us apart is that we give back to our community as often as possible, in as many ways as we are able. We are a drop off location for Love-pacs, which is a local non-profit who put together nutritious food packages for food insecure school children. We have a charity week, where we give 15% of our profits from the week to a local non-profit. We have given free haircuts at the MLK Jr Centers back-to-school event for the past 2 years and we’ll continue to as long as they’ll have us. We give free haircuts to our unhoused population at Our Daily Bread every month. We sponsor local events like Denton Bike Night, and Decades Dance Night at Dan’s Silverleaf. Our community is why we’re here. It supported us when we needed it and showed us so much love. We want to try and contribute what we can to help make it an even better place.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Every place is more or less the same. It’s always the people that make it special. Our city is filled with great people. Their stories are amazing. They are full of love and life, and they give it freely. We love our communities fiercely and we love to show it as well across the whole DFW. You’re helping contribute to that with articles like these. What I like least is that I’ll only be able to hear a small percent of the stories that the amazing people of DFW have to share. I don’t like that there’s only so much food I’ll be able to try. Only so many incredible experiences I’ll be able to share with an even more limited number of people.
Pricing:
- Haircuts are $30
- Beard trims are $15
- Long hair is $60
- Buzz cuts are $15
Contact Info:
- Website: Barnhartsbarbershop.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barnhartsbarbershop?igsh=MWN4cnhjNWY5bzI2MA==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083444162692&mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zc81taF9T4MxvVTv5
Image Credits
James Coffman
