Missouri Life June 2023

RETRO SHOPS, MODERN TWISTS Meanwhile, in Sedalia, there’s more than one “distraction” at the Two-Bit Barber Company, where big-screens keep customers up- to-date on their favorite sports teams. However, in an 1883 building that once housed a pharmacy and soda fountain, the shop across from the Pettis County Courthouse also tips its hat to a distant past. Gutting the building before he opened the shop in 2018, Tim kept its brick walls exposed and original black and white checkerboard floor intact. Gold-trimmed chairs add to the retro feel. So do Two-Bit’s services. A Sedalia native, Tim says he wanted the shop to be a “throwback to traditional barbering, the lost art”—and that’s why haircuts and hot-towel and straight-razor shaves can be purchased along with a beer and cigar. In February, barber Dillon Edens fashioned a fade for customer Chad Lance, a Marshall resident who regularly makes the 26-mile trip to the shop. “Every time I come here, I look forward to a fun experience,” Chad says. “You can have a great haircut, you can have a beer and cigar, and great conversation.” One hundred miles northeast in Moberly, providing services in demand among younger generations is also important to Bud’s Barber Left, Joseph “Joey” Thomas gives a trim to Leland Roberts, who says he has known Joey since he was 6. At Thomas’s shop, 180V, in Kansas City’s Jazz District, neighborhood kids get free haircuts at the start of every school year. Below, Russell Gann, Amy Gann, and Jim Fortner groom customers at the Walnut Street Barber Shop, a downtown Springfield fixture where not much has changed since the shop first opened in the 1940s.

39 / JUNE 2023