‘It’s All About Family’: Community Around Valley Stream Barber Shop Comes Together To Rebuild After Fire

VALLEY STREAM, NY — In the aftermath of a Sunday night fire that damaged a trio of Valley Stream businesses and displaced two people from their homes, the community around one of those businesses is rallying to support a storefront that has always been more than that.

Damaged in the two-alarm fire Sunday night, Mr. D Cut Barber Shop has been in its current storefront on Rockaway Avenue since 2014. It moved there from another storefront down the block, where it had been for over a decade previously.

According to Jesenia Garcia-Jimenez, whose husband Danny Jimenez co-owns the shop with her brother-in-law, Anyelo Jimenez, Sunday’s fire didn’t just take away a place for people to get beard trims and buzz cuts. It took away a storefront that has been her husband’s dream.

“This has been his passion. This is something that he's been doing since he was very young. He's very talented at what he does,” Jesenia said. “He loves servicing the customers. He's a people person. He started since he was a very young kid, from when he was in his country, the Dominican Republic. He just started from the ground up.”

In the aftermath of the fire, Jesenia said Mr. D’s will have to start from scratch again. Her and Danny's daughter set up a GoFundMe to help recoup costs.

Sunday night, Nassau County police said the fire had been deemed non-suspicious. Regardless of what the financial burden is, Jesenia said there were some investments that had been made that went beyond the dollar amounts. Much of what was in the shop, for example, Danny — the titular "Mr. D" — had done by hand.

“Everything that was in there he did from the ground up…it breaks my heart,” Garcia-Jimenez said. “I know how much he put into that business. Right now, we're starting from the ground up, looking for a new location, which is currently in the works. Just starting from ground zero, buying all new things to rebuild.”

That process, however, isn’t something that happens overnight. Even after putting together the multiple months’ rent required to secure a release, Jesenia said Danny, Anyelo and the barbers that work with them will have to bring in equipment like chairs, clippers, disinfectant and blow dryers, much of which was lost in Sunday’s fire.

For Danny Hall, a father of three from North Valley Stream, the temporary loss of Mr. D’s has impacted his whole family. His three sons, aged 13, 20 and 22, have been going to Danny and Anyelo’s barber shop for years, starting back when it was at its former location and following the duo to their new storefront.

“The place is family. I’ve got three sons. All three of them, they've been there from when they were infants," Hall said. "So it’s more than just getting a haircut, it's a very tight knit part of the community. It’s a space where you go in, you'd speak your mind in, and it’s a non-judgmental space.”

While his two oldest sons are able to make their own appointments these days, Hall said there are still some days where the four of them walk into the shop together, as a family.

“It's good common ground there. My boys go in there, they know they’re with family. It's a place we trust,” Hall said. “My youngest is 13 years-old, there's not many places we'll let him go totally by himself. For a few years, if I needed to drop him off, I’d drop him off, I’d pick him up in a few. I’ve seen him grow up [in that barber shop].”

Hall said that his family wasn’t alone in missing the beloved barber, either. At a dinner this week, a bartender stopped a group of Danny and his friends to offer his condolences. The bartender, Hall said, had been stopping in at Mr. D’s for several years.

“Yesterday, a few friends, with Danny, went to go get a bite at a local restaurant two towns away. We're in there, we sit down, the bartender says to him when we get in, ‘I’m so sorry. I heard about the place.’ He's just like, ‘I’ve been going there for five years,’ he was working in Manhattan, and then he's back on Long Island…everybody's welcome,” Hall said.

For South Bronx native Oscar Espinal, another longtime client of Danny’s, the loss has felt similar. Espinal has been going to Danny for haircuts since 2010,when he moved to Valley Stream to go to college at Hofstra.

As a young man, Espinal said deciding who would give him a haircut was “one of the toughest decisions” he had to make. 16 years later, however, he said the trust he placed in Danny has only ever been rewarded.

Espinal has gone back for haircuts ahead of important days when he needs to look his best, like weddings, his son’s first communion, and the occasional business event. While he has kept going back for the quality of the haircuts, Espinal said it’s also the environment around Mr. D’s that has been valuable.

“This is the one place where you can go from talking about sports to getting picked on lightly to having a good laugh to sharing a meal. It is everything you would get at home in an outside environment,” Espinal said. “This is a place where you go and you kind of hit the reset button. And I know that we're just talking about a barbershop, but that's really what it is. It's a place to go hit the reset button. When you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good, everything around you changes.”

In a conversation with Patch, Espinal said Mr. D’s has already survived hard times like the ones they now face. That enduring spirit, Espinal said, is part of the reason he’s sure the business will land on its feet.

“The best comeback story, besides this one they’re going to write, was the pandemic. During the pandemic, a lot of barbers got really creative, whether it was a mobile van or in-house cutting. Danny provided [something] a little bit more upscale,” Espinal said. “The moment the governor — at that time, Cuomo — said we could have some face to face interaction, Danny opened up. And it was a limited service, they were only allowed to have one customer per every other chair. But he didn't give up.”

Espinal remembers the day Mr. D’s opened up post-pandemic — the Hofstra graduate said he “looked like a caveman” after some time away from a barber’s chair — but he said the shop customers saw when it reopened was different from the one they had left. Danny, it turns out, had renovated the entire space while the world was shut inside.

“He renovated the entire barbershop during the pandemic. New chairs, new stations, he just went to work,” Espinal said.

In the aftermath of the fire, both Espinal and Hall said they’ll stick with Danny and Anyelo, whether that requires driving to a new location, setting up in-house trims or some third option. Espinal said his daughter, whose boyfriend is also a Mr. D client, had been texting him in the aftermath of the fire to ask what Danny and Anyelo's plan was. His eight-year-old son, also a Mr. D client, will continue going as well, Espinal said.

For Garcia-Jimenez, the most important part of the days after the fire had been getting the barbers at Mr. D’s set up with new places to ply their trade. The rebuilding process will be difficult, but not out of reach.

“It’s not impossible, but it’s going to take a bit of time,” she told Patch. “This is what Mr. D is all about. It goes far beyond what the shop is, it’s family. It’s all about family, taking care of one another, coming together to be there for one another.”

In a conversation with Patch Tuesday, Espinal said he still remembers his first haircut after Mr. D's had been closed during the early days of the pandemic. Despite some shutdown time, Espinal said Danny wasn't out of practice. If anything, Espinal said, the brand new clippers Danny had brought in were almost too new.

“The clippers were on point, I can tell you that much. They were brand spanking new, and whenever you try new clippers they’re sometimes a little rough on soft skin,” Espinal said. “He didn’t cut me, but you can feel the trim.”

As the people who call Mr. D's home look to rebuild, they're certain there'll be more trims in the future.