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Fadehouse Book: (816) 555-0139

Troost & 39th, Kansas City, Missouri

Your last barber owes you an apology.

We're not gonna talk about what you walked in with. We're gonna fix it, photograph it, and send you back out there correct. Four chairs, no rushing, no guessing what you want because we asked.

First time in a chair here? You're not the first head I've surprised. Sit down. I don't miss.

Book a chair: (816) 555-0139 The price is the price
Archival photograph: the interior of an Atlanta barber shop in 1936, two empty barber chairs with folded towels over the arms, an oval mirror and a swept wooden floor.
Two chairs, towels folded, floor swept, nobody in them yet. That's what a room looks like when it's ready for you. Walker Evans, Atlanta, Georgia, 1936. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress.

The board

The price was already correct.

Somebody asked what we do for Black Friday. 0% off everything, because the number on the board is the number. Here's the number.

Cuts

The cut$35
Cut + beard$50
Beard only Straight razor is Teo's chair, ask for him$25
Kids 12 and under$25
Shape-up Inside 3 weeks of your last cut here. Tell whoever's free "Dre said."$15
Grey blend+$10
Designs That's Marcus. Bring a picture or bring trust.Quoted in the chair

Kid under five gets the first cut free and the Polaroid goes on the mirror. That's Mr. Chick's rule from the Prospect Ave days and it's not up for review. Cash, card, tap. IOUs retired with the last shop.

Archival photograph: a barber leaning in close, applying the finishing touches to a customer's shave in San Augustine, Texas, 1939.
The finish is the whole job. Russell Lee, San Augustine, Texas, 1939. FSA/OWI, Library of Congress.

Who's cutting

We take appointments for anybody with a head.

Four chairs. Two of them came from Mr. Chick's shop on Prospect when he retired, 1963 Belmonts, and chair two is the one Dre cuts from. It is 61 years old and it is still the best seat in Kansas City.

Marcus Reed

Chair one · Fades & freestyle designs

Seven years with Dre. In Dre's words: "I taught him everything except the humility, he came with that." Bring a picture or bring trust, either works.

Dre Wallace

Chair two · Owner · Tapers, lineups, first-timers

Started at 15 with pawn-shop clippers, did nine years under Mr. Chick, opened this room in 2019. Has photographed every finished cut since. Never once rushed a lineup and is openly smug about it.

Teo Ramírez

Chair three · Beards & straight razor

The hot-towel, straight-razor chair. Teo once lined up a pastor's beard so clean the man blessed the chair afterward. That's a true story and Dre will show you the post.

Jalen

Chair four · The apprentice chair

Chair four always belongs to whoever is learning. Right now that's Jalen, and he's under Dre's eye the whole time, the same way Dre was under Chick's. Discount cuts, full supervision, zero experiments.

The room

Three chairs going
at once. 1941.

This is the one Dre points at when somebody asks why the wall looks like that. Look at it: nobody in this room is rushing and nobody in it is guessing. Every man in that photograph knew exactly what he was doing to the head in front of him.

Eighty-five years later we've got four chairs instead of three and better clippers. That's the entire list of what changed.

Russell Lee, Southside Chicago, April 1941. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Dre's wall

The trade is older than everybody's opinions.

Dre collects old barbershop photography and hangs it framed over the waiting bench. Farm Security Administration prints, mostly, 1936 to 1942, from the Library of Congress files. When somebody asks why, he points at the three-chairs shot and says the standard was set before any of us were born. The one you just walked through up there hangs behind chair two. These four hang over the bench, and yes, he'll tell you about every one of them while he's cutting.

Archival photograph: barber Oscar J. Freeman in a white smock working on a reclined customer in the Metropolitan Barber Shop, Chicago, 1942, an ornate register on the counter beside him.
Mr. Oscar J. Freeman, owner of the Metropolitan Barber Shop on South Parkway. Owned his room, ran his room, fourteen years deep when this was taken. Dre's favorite print in the shop and it isn't close. Jack Delano, Chicago, 1942. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress.
Archival photograph: a barber brushing hair off a customer's suit at the door of a Southside Chicago barber shop, 1941, hats on the rack behind them.
The brush-off at the door. You don't let a man walk back out onto the street with hair on his shoulders. Some rules are eighty-five years old and still correct. Russell Lee, Southside Chicago, 1941. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress.
Archival photograph: men sitting and waiting on a bench inside a San Augustine, Texas barber shop on a Saturday afternoon, 1939, one barber working at the chair.
Saturday afternoon, and the bench is full. Dre hung this one over the waiting bench on purpose. He's telling you something and he knows it. Russell Lee, San Augustine, Texas, 1939. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress.
Archival photograph: a small-town storefront row in Yates Center, Kansas, 1938, holding a barber shop with a striped pole, a newspaper office and a photographer's studio.
Yates Center, Kansas, 1938. A barber, a newspaper and a photographer sharing one block. Kansas has always understood which businesses matter. John Vachon, Yates Center, Kansas, 1938. FSA/OWI Collection, Library of Congress.

The anniversary posters

Two cuts even, Reyna. That's the deal.

Every October, Reyna Ortiz screen-prints one poster for the shop's anniversary, oxblood ink on cream stock, and gets paid two haircuts for it. The wall behind the chairs is color-matched to the ink on the first one, because Dre had a gallon mixed and got cocky about it. This whole page is set in that poster. Number six goes up this October.

ONE YEAR DEEP PAID IN TWO CUTS FADEHOUSE · MMXX
2020. The first one. The wall is this ink.
STILL HERE TROOST & 39TH FADEHOUSE · MMXXI
2021. Printed during the year nobody needs reminding about.
THREE CHAIRS BECAME 4 FADEHOUSE · MMXXII
2022. Jalen's chair arrives.
THE WAIT IS PART OF IT SATURDAYS, MOSTLY FADEHOUSE · MMXXIII
2023. The only apology Dre issues, in print.
FIVE YEARS YOUR LAST BARBER STILL OWES YOU AN APOLOGY FADEHOUSE · MMXXIV
2024. Reyna's favorite. Ours too.

Signs Dre has actually hung

House rules

  1. Walk-ins: yes. Patience: Saturdays only.
  2. Kid under five, first cut free, Polaroid goes on the mirror. Mr. Chick's rule. It stays.
  3. Shape-up inside three weeks of your cut is $15. Tell whoever's free "Dre said."
  4. If your barber never asks what YOU want, that's not your barber. That's a guy who owns clippers.
  5. First-timers: we photograph the finish for the wall. You can say no. Dre will respect it. He'll also never forget it.
  6. The walk-in board doesn't lie. If the wait is 40 minutes we say 40 minutes, and the QuikTrip on 39th has coffee.
  7. Cash, card, tap. IOUs retired with the last shop.

Pull up

Get here before 3 and the board says yes.

Booking is one phone number and it goes to the counter, not a call center. Call it, text it, same result: a chair with your name on it. Walk-ins go on the chalkboard in the order you came, and the board doesn't play favorites, not even for Pastor Keith.

(816) 555-0139

3941 Troost Ave, Kansas City, MO 64110
Street parking on Troost, lot behind the building off 39th Terrace.

Hours

MondayClosed. Even the clippers get a day.
Tuesday thru Friday9:00 to 7:00
Saturday8:00 to 4:00
Sunday11:00 to 3:00