Bob Rohloff has been cutting hair for almost as long as he's been alive — and at 91 years old, he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
In June, Rohloff opened Bob's Old Fashioned Barbershop in Hortonville, Wisconsin, a 20-minute drive from his hometown, Black Creek, and a 2-hour drive north from Milwaukee.
Rohloff says this new business venture fulfills a dream he has had on his bucket list for decades: to own a barbershop in his "favorite place in the world."
He started cutting hair in 1948, training under his dad, Erv, who was also a barber, and honing his skills at the Appleton Vocational School in nearby Appleton, Wisconsin.
After graduating, he opened two shops in Wisconsin, then moved to Arizona in 1990 and spent 18 years working there.
Rohloff tried to retire when he and his wife Marian lived in Arizona, but "unretired" just a few months later because he missed the camaraderie and conversation of the barbershop.
"Retirement isn't that easy," he says. "You need to stay active in something, whether it's a hobby or a job, and I happened to enjoy my job very much … it's fun coming into the shop, I like to do it and I feel good, so why stop?"
When he and Marian moved back to Wisconsin in 2010, Rohloff took a job at the Hortonville Family Barbershop, but he had always toyed with the idea of opening his own shop again.
Then, fate intervened: In March, Mark Karweick, another barber, walked into the shop, looking for opportunities to move from Michigan back to Appleton, his hometown.
One of the barbers introduced him to Rohloff, and 90 minutes later, the pair shook hands and agreed to open a shop together. "Bob can sit and talk to anybody, he can be really persuasive," Karweick, 55, says.
The shop took roughly three months to open. Karweick and Rohloff got a lot of the equipment from an old barbershop in Michigan, decorating the tables and chairs in red and white details.
Rohloff jokes that his customer chair, which is 100 years old, is the only thing in his shop that is older than him.
"There aren't that many old-fashioned shops left in the country, we want to try and keep the tradition alive," he adds.
A standard haircut at the shop is $14, and a haircut for seniors is $12. Nationwide, the average cost of a men's haircut is $30, according to Beardoholic.
"The best part has been meeting new people," says Rohloff. "They're not just customers, they become fast friends. We have customers who bring us maple syrup, people that will bring us vegetables from their farms or even homemade sauerkraut. You don't get that working in a big city."
Some of the customers come in just to see Rohloff, who cut their hair when they were kids. "I'll have people in their 50s telling me I gave them their first haircut when they were 2!" he says.
Right now, Rohloff works in the shop on Thursdays and Fridays, commuting from nearby Appleton.
"It's been a lot of fun," says Karweick, who will take over the shop from Rohloff whenever he decides to stop working. "We trade techniques back and forth, he's always teaching me something new."
On the days he's not at the shop, Rohloff says he enjoys playing cards with friends — his favorite game is Sheepshead, a Bavarian tradition that's popular in Wisconsin — and spending time with Marian, whom he's been married to for 72 years.
At this point, Rohloff says he can't imagine his life without working in a barbershop — he'll only retire if the job becomes too physically demanding, or Marian asks him to. Adds Rohloff: "I'm too happy to quit."
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