Church's Barbershop opens on Agricola

After two years of lowering ears from their west end joint, Scallywags Barbershop (6513 Chebucto Road), Dylan MacEachern and Brad MacDonald are expanding their fleet. Last week the pair quietly opened Church’s Barbershop in the former Makenew location (2468 Agricola Street), a spin off location that offers the same service with a slightly sleeker different look.

“We were just interested in having barbershops that service different little neighbourhoods in the city. Agricola Street is cool, there’s a whole bunch going on in the street right now—it’s super bustling,” says MacEachern. “Scallywags is a little bit knick knacky, a little busy. This one I’m trying to keep more minimal, clean and contemporary—concrete countertops and birch.”

Contemporary with a healthy dose of throwback inspiration, though. MacEachern says both the name, and some of the shop’s decor, are a hat tip to Harold Church, “an OG barber” who opened his first shop in Truro in 1953, and later hung his clippers in Tatamagouche.

“I have a cottage in Tatamagouche and I was kind of keeping my eye on the spot, until he passed away a couple of years ago,” he says. “I got in touch with Bonnie Church, his widow, and purchased all the fixtures out of the shop.”

A barber pole and Belmont chairs —along with a letter of consent from Bonnie Church herself—decorate and influence the new north end barbershop. Church’s is currently cutting from two chairs Tuesday through Sunday, hoping to expand to three or four by summer’s end.