Healdsburg Barber Shop Builds Business Behind The Chair Through Relationships

HEALDSBURG, CA — On any given day, the next customer through the door at the Center Street Barbershop could be a 5-year-old getting ready for the first day of school, a groom preparing for his wedding, a doctor finishing a hospital shift, or a father returning with the son whose hair barber Joel Sandoval has cut since birth.

The hairstyles change, the stories change, and the faces change, but Sandoval said people remember one thing most: how the barber made them feel.

When Sandoval opened Center Street Barbershop in the Healdsburg Shopping Center last August, he was just 22 years old.

Less than a year later, the now 23-year-old business owner works alongside four independent barbers while building a loyal clientele drawn from Healdsburg and neighboring communities.

Sandoval, who is from Rohnert Park, chose Healdsburg after recognizing an opportunity in a market with fewer barbershops than nearby cities.

"I had a good amount of customers that were coming from Healdsburg," he said. Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa are pretty saturated with barber shops, but Healdsburg not so much.

There are two besides Center Street: Plaza Barber Shop and Erik's Barber Shop.

Sandovals customers include local families, business travelers working from nearby CraftWork co-working spaces (not too short on the sides), tourists visiting wine country, and wedding parties preparing for celebrations.

The shop regularly schedules group appointments for weddings, with five barbers serving parties of up to seven people in about 90 minutes.

Some grooms book haircuts before the ceremony for the final cut. They can shake off pre-nuptial jitters and just relax "and then off they go," Sandoval said.

He dedicated the shop for an hour to a party of six men and a groom getting ready for such an occasion.

Kids — and sometimes men — come in for modern mohawks. "They look like little rock stars," said Sandoval, who wears his own hair in a straight-forward cut.

First Barber Chair

Sandoval's path into barbering began long before he opened his own business.

At age 12, he started buzzing his father's hair before practicing on his younger brothers — one of them every week and a half, Sandoval said, chuckling lightly at the memory.

By his early teens, he was studying haircut tutorials on YouTube, buying used equipment from his own barber, and, later, cutting hair for friends.

"I started cutting my friends at school and everything," Sandoval said. "I just did that all the way through high school."

His first barber chair, purchased with help from his father, cost only a few hundred dollars. Today, he owns a fully equipped shop that reflects his preference for practicality over chasing the newest equipment.

"If I find something that I like, I'll just stick with it till it dies," he said.

The spacious layout reflects another priority. Rather than crowding barber stations together, Sandoval deliberately left room between chairs so customers can relax without feeling squeezed into a busy shop.

"I like space," he said. "I want you to relax, have a good time, get your haircut, and get on with your day."

The shop also includes a pool table, an arcade-style Pac-Man machine ("The kids love it," Sandoval said), and seating designed to make appointments feel less like errands and more like a place to spend time.

For Sandoval, however, the business revolves around something less tangible than furniture or equipment.

"The relationship with your clients is everything," he said. "Without them you don't have nothing."

He compared barbering to restaurant service, in that people return because of how they're treated as much as the haircut itself.

"You remember how they made you feel," he said.

Behind The Chair

That philosophy has shaped some of his favorite moments behind the chair. Talking about them, Sandoval smiles and slips into storytelling.

One day might bring a 5-year-old getting a first-day-of-school haircut. The next customer could be a doctor, a lawyer, or someone facing personal hardships.

Sandoval says the barber chair often becomes a place where people share stories they tell nowhere else.

"You never know what's going to happen in this chair," he said. "Sometimes they just let it all release, and they feel better."

Those relationships often span generations. Some longtime customers now bring their own children for haircuts, turning routine appointments into family traditions.

"It's not just a haircut," Sandoval said. "There's always something."

The shop also looks beyond paying customers. Earlier this year, Sandoval and his team provided free haircuts to Healdsburg High School's varsity, junior varsity, and freshman basketball teams before the playoffs.

He hopes to expand those efforts to other local sports programs."They've helped us so much," he said of the community. "Why not help them a little bit too?"