Barber Celebrates 60 Years on 95th Street

EVERGREEN PARK, IL -- For the past six decades, the regulars have flocked to 95th Street for the no-tricks haircuts and banter of one Joe Scozio, proprietor of the Evergreen Barber Shop. On this auspicious occasion of his shop’s 60th anniversary, Scozio has received congratulatory notes from Cardinal Blase Cupich and a visit from a 45-pound black throat monitor lizard named Tanzi.

“Want a beer? How about some whiskey,” Scozio tells his regulars and well-wishers who stop by at his in-store party to wish him a happy anniversary.

Since June 15, 1957, Scozio has been keeping the men of Evergreen Park and other nearby neighborhoods looking dapper at Evergreen Barber Shop, 3320 W. 95th St. Seventeen years old and fresh out of St. Rita High School, Scozio joined his dad in the business of cutting heads.

This afternoon, Scozio has a shop full of customers, many of them regulars, whose visits to their friend’s barber shop is more coincidental than out of any need to congratulate Scozio on his 60 years of watching 95th Street evolve from a two-lane street into a four-lane surface road. Dave the Snakeman DiNaso drags a plastic storage bin containing his giant lizard into the shop.

“I also got a six-foot, 125-pound python in the van,” DiNaso announces.

“I like snaky women,” Scozio quips.

When DiNaso was a kid growing up in Oak Lawn, his dad would bring him to Scozio’s barber shop for haircuts. DiNaso still stops by for a trim whenever one of his Travelling World of Reptile shows bring him to the area.

“Joe told my father I’d never go bald because of my thick, curly hair,” Dave the Snakeman says. “He was right.”

Scozio helps customer Peter Woods, a Vietnam War veteran, into the chair.

“High up around the ears?” Scozio asks him.

Not much has changed since Scozio started in the hair-cutting business, except most teens and little boys who come in today with their dads want sports clips. Then there were the hippie years when all the young men let their freak flags fly.

Scozio still uses a straight razor to sculpt a customer’s sideburns and an ancient latherizer that warms up the creme for a hot shave.

“I’ve been cutting hair the same way I did 60 years ago but with a lot more experience,” says the 77-year-old Scozio, who lives in Oak Forest but spends about ten hours a day at his shop in Evergreen Park.

He finishes up Woods in the chair, then goes to the 60-year-old cash register that has been repainted three times -- blue, gold, beige -- because why buy a new register when this one is perfectly okay?

The closest he’s come to cutting a celebrity’s hair is when the late Senator Paul Simon came into his shop.

“He was extremely intelligent,” Scozio says of the late Democratic senator. “He talked to everyone in this room.”

According to Scozio, Simon wanted a haircut, but there were five people ahead of him. He told Simon’s aide that it was first come, first served.

“Nobody wanted to give up their seat,” Scozio says. “They were all Republicans, so he left.”

It’s the real neighborhood celebrities that Scozio would rather brag about, like 99-year-old Dick Carparelli, the assistant golf pro at the Beverly Country Club. Carparelli, who is Scozio’s oldest customer, will be celebrating his century-mark in a couple of months.

“If you’re a regular customer and celebrate your 100th birthday you’ll get a free haircut,” Scozio says, “but only one.”

One day, Scozio had two 99-year-old gents in the shop, but he never saw them again. Another customer, a retired Chicago police officer, got a free haircut on his 100th birthday.

“He was the first regular to get a free haircut,” Scozio says. “He made it to 101 but I told him he only gets one free haircut.”

Sen. John Cullerton sent his congratulations. So did Evergreen Park Mayor Jim Sexton.

“If only the walls of this barber shop could talk,” Sexton said in a resolution honoring Scozio. “I can’t imagine what an interesting trip it’s been. I know you’ve been taking care of many of our village residents. No wonder everyone in town has been looking so dapper all these years.”

What’s the secret of Scozio’s success, besides getting to listen to his stories?

“There are no tricks at the Evergreen Barber Shop,” he said. “Just good old fashioned haircuts.”

Salud to Joe Scozio and the Evergreen Barber Shop. May all your regulars live to be 100 so they can get a free haircut on their birthday.