With the fast-paced world that many find themselves in nowadays, finding time to fit in a haircut appointment can be difficult. It can disrupt your workday if you schedule it during the week. And many shops aren’t open on Saturdays or Sundays. Or if they are, they are likely only open for a half day.
But now Lynnfield’s Nick Grava, with his business partner, has found a way to bring the barber to you.
Grava and co-founder Luke Noreen have opened Mobile Barber, a haircut shop on wheels that allows customers to experience getting a trim from the comfort of a decked-out van, with an arsenal of haircut supplies at their disposal.
Celebrating its one-year anniversary this past February, Mobile Barber has already traveled to make hundreds of haircuts along the North Shore. In today’s fast-paced world, Noreen said people want and need quick services on demand, referencing their target demographic of millennials.
“These young millennials, they love convenience,” Noreen said. “The waiting around vibe (at barbershops) isn’t really there anymore. People are just so busy in life, so we really found the value of the convenience.”
The idea ironically came while Noreen was cutting Grava’s hair at his barbershop roughly two years ago. Grava had been a regular at Noreen’s shop and the two had been talking about going into business together.
Previously, Noreen had been traveling to luxury apartment complexes to cut hair, but it quickly became a hassle moving on foot. He then pitched the idea of a barbershop on wheels, and thus, Mobile Barber was born.
It began by going from apartment to apartment, largely in the Seaport District in Boston, but the van now travels almost anywhere in the state. Headquartered at Grava’s family car dealership in Malden, the van has gone as far out as Springfield in western Massachusetts, and on weekends, it will make trips down to Cape Cod.
On the road, the van is not hard to miss.
“Mobile Barber” is on both sides of the van in large, white lettering, along with its logo, a phone with stripes going across it, which is a play on the barber’s pole.
Jonathan Lepore, who has been cutting hair for 25 years, is one of the business’ barbers, and said that it was smart to keep the name simple.
“I feel like Nick and Luke, they really got ahead with that name,” Lepore said.
Though it was simple, Noreen says he and Grava went through nearly 50 different names before his mother convinced him to keep it basic.
“It made so much sense, book Mobile Barber,” Noreen said. “You want to book the haircut, you want to book a mobile barber. I can’t even tell you the amount of people that search that and call us.”
While other barbers in the area take house calls, Mobile Barber is the only one with a shop physically located in the van, which Noreen says makes a huge difference.
“It’s the convenience factor and the cleanliness,” Noreen said. “You save time, you save time, travel, gas, etc.”
Lepore has been with Mobile Barber since the beginning, and said he enjoys seeing customers head back to work, their house, or whatever their plans were for that day with a fresh, new haircut.
“It’s a proud feeling almost every time,” Lepore said.
The business has already enjoyed a great deal of success in a short period of time. Lepore said that the van will go to almost any event from weddings to trips to college campuses.
Noreen said they have visions of expanding their business, which are already coming to reality as another van is currently being built.
“I see this truly being a very successful startup company,” Noreen said.
