The Real Barbers of Southgate Shopping Center in Tumwater

tumwater barber
All chairs were filled on the first day the three barbers worked together and conversation was lively.
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By Barb Lally

NW prosthodonticsWalk into The Barber Shop & Co. at Southgate Shopping Center in the heart of Tumwater and you would think you had walked into a great reality TV show.

All three chairs are filled and more clients are waiting for a barber. The buzz of electric trimmers is constant and over it, the banter is colorful and the stories are lively – people conversing about sports to what’s happening with mutual friends and neighbors.

For these three barbers, it is their first day working together. Doug and Cookie Parsons, cleaned out Doug’s Bullpen, their shop of more than 20 years, the day before and moved up the street to work with Cathy Hawkins who had remodeled her Southgate barbershop a few years back and added additional chairs.

tumwater barber
Real life barbers Cookie (left), Cathy (center) and Doug (right) have joined together at The Barber Shop in Tumwater.

Together, the three have a lot of barber talent, serious respect for their profession, and a lot of loyal clients, judging by the steady stream into the shop.

Reflecting back and looking forward

The years at Doug’s Bullpen are less than half of Doug’s 54 years as a barber.

Doug started cutting hair at the age of 16 in his Dad’s shop near the old post office on Pacific in Lacey in 1959. “That was before South Sound Center even existed and there was a drive-in theatre where Fred Meyer is located now,” Doug reflects.

The requirements to be licensed as a barber were tougher then. “When we went to barber school you had to take a test for a haircut, shave, shampoo and facial in an hour and a half,” Doug says. “The schools don’t do that anymore.”

Prior to Doug’s Bullpen, the Parson’s had a barber shop for 25 years on Littlerock Road when there was so little traffic the band from Tumwater Middle School would march down the middle of road for practice.

When the school had after-school activities, Doug and Cookie often stayed at their shop with the lights on so that students could wait there and stay warm until their parents picked them up.

Doug and Cookie didn’t move from Doug’s Bullpen for lack of customers. “We can barely handle what we have now between the two of us,” says Doug who explains that running a small business is not easy. But they want to keep working.

“We enjoy the people,” says Cookie. “We like our lifestyle.” 

Customers are family

tumwater barber
Doug and Cookie Parsons on the day they moved out of Doug’s Bullpen, their barber shop for more than 20 years.

“You get to know your customers pretty personally, it’s like a family,” says Cookie.

Rick C., arrived on Doug and Cookie’s first day at Cathy’s shop. Doug has been cutting his hair for 15 years and says that real barbers are a dying breed.

“It’s not just a haircut, it’s great conversation,” Rick says while Doug clips his hair. “You become friends after a while. Doug gets to meet my grandkids and my wife. When we see each other in the store we greet each other.”

“I bribe them with Tootsie Rolls,” says Doug, who is well known as the “Tootsie Roll man.”

Doug also prides himself in serving many generations of a single family. “At one time I was in a photo with four generations of family members,” he says.

Any mention of a topic or place can prompt a story about their clients.

“Doug used to cut Dan Evans hair before he was governor,” Cookie says. “He also used to cut the hair of the pilots that flew for the governor.”

And, Doug remembers cutting the hair of the oldest living retired Federal Marshal who was in his 90s at the time. “This guy would tell stories you wouldn’t believe,” Doug says.

Haircuts aren’t digital

tumwater barber
All chairs were filled on the first day the three barbers worked together and conversation was lively.

Four years ago, Cathy Hawkins commissioned local artist Jim Whaley to paint a beautiful mural of the Southgate Center on the wall just outside her shop.

“Lots of people come and see it,” says Cathy. “I had a travel agency here for 25 years, which we opened in 1979, so that’s what I was trying to capture in the mural.”

Cathy has a brother-in-law who is a master barber with 21 barber shops who encouraged her to open her own shop.

“You can’t get a haircut online,” says Cathy who decided to go to barber school while she still had her travel agency. “It’s the truth. You can get airline tickets, but you can’t get a haircut online.”

Cathy, a grandmother of 12 and great grandmother of two, owns a second shop in Olympia and intends to keep cutting hair for awhile. “I like working,” is her simple explanation. 

Inspiring another generation

Cathy Hawkins bought her shop from barber Ky Johnson. “I used to cut his hair when he was a little kid,” Doug adds. “He went to barber school to come to work with me before he got his own shop.”

tumwater barber
Doug still has his Dad’s barber poll that dates back more than 65 years.

Cookie remembers another local that followed in their footsteps. “Doug cut Brian Seymour’s hair when he was a kid. Now he owns Clippers Barber Shop down the road.”

“Used to cut his hair when he was in a diaper,” Doug explains further.

Doug and Cookie, who are grandparents to 10 and great grandparents to 14, have three children, one of whom is a barber and worked with them at Doug’s Bullpen. 

A New Start

The antique barber chairs dating from 1901 and 1854 from Doug’s Bullpen are now in storage, but Doug and Cookie look forward to serving their loyal customers at The Barber Shop & Co.

If you call there sometime, Cathy will answer the phone. She will simply answer “Barber Shop” because that is purely what it is, a real barber shop with the real barbers of Southgate Shopping Center.

To contact The Barber Shop & Co. at Southgate, call (360) 352-7070.

 

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