I was walking down Alberta when I met Bart.  I was fuming, steam and funk visibly billowing up from my entire body.   I was livid!  It must have taken some serious huevos to pass me a business card and pitch his gig to me, but  he stepped up to bat.

“I’m Bart the barber,” he said, bespectacled with curly brown hair.

“Can you fix this?” I screamed at him,  emphatically waving both my hands around my head , “I asked for it short, not faux hawked out.  I didn’t ask for a frigging faux hawk!  And they didn’t even offer me a *#%@& beer!”

“Come see me tomorrow,” with utmost gravity and empathy. I asked him when he opened and where he was located.

I am entering the fourth year of my relationship with Bart and his positive, humble capability continues to wow me.  Ask him about the guitar.

Bart had arrived in Portland from Cleveland a bit back.  He held a chair at the local style salon and cut during the day.

“I also janitor downtown at _____ hotel on the graveyard,” he confided in me,” I’m saving up for a ring for my girlfriend.”  Are you kidding me?

I was in, but the revelation continued to unfold.  This guy was meant to barber!

As he cut my hair, I badgered him with questions.  Why barber? Barber school?  Barber dreams? Barber children some day? (My approach can be audaciously forward when I am really interested in someone)

Turns out he’s a barber by blood.  His parents met in ’75 at barber school in Cleveland.  It was just natural.  Bart cut his first hair at the age of four.  He loved it so much he kept on cutting: his first patron’s parents  stopped him at the hairline…the child not quit sure why his parents fussed over the receded hairline look.

I followed Bart through a few salons until he purchased his own shop: which  happened to be the oldest continous barber shop in Portland.  No kidding, open since 1927, there at 518 S.E. Morrison.

17 bucks a cut works for me, especially with the straight edge finish.  Bart is re-energizing the the lost art of the straight edge.  If you have never had a straight edge shave by a professional barber then you need to file it on the bucket list.  Not now, but sometime in the near future.  Like the massage, or the gratuitous shoe purchasing spree, it can oft times heal your soul.  For you super business types: the shave holds its integrity longer with the straight edge.

There’s a good chance his brother will be moving to Portland in October.  Holding the third chair in Bart’s Barbershop.

518 S.E. Morrison

503.233.8603