Lash's Place
Now I’m accustomed to getting great service from my hair dresser or barber. I think that’s mostly because I’ve known most of my hair dressers personally before I ever arrived. I didn’t expect this.
Yesterday I hopped on Yelp to find a local barber or salon to cut my hair for something resembling a reasonable price (anything over 35$ and it better come with a beer and a movie). I found Lash’s Place.
One of the principle features of this establishment was it’s exceptionally long history in San Mateo and the services of one tattooed hair stylist who seemed pretty hip. I called for an appointment, cause isn’t that what you do when you get a haircut these days?
The man who answered turned out to be Lash, the owner of the establishment. He seemed surprised I had discovered the place, especially being from out of town, and slightly surprised I was calling for an appointment. We settled on 4:30pm. Apparently the offer even came with “as many glasses of wine as I wanted“.
I arrived a little early, having had to make a run to the bank, and the place was full of sports paraphanelia, articles on the history of the barbershop and two barbers chairs. Lash’s in the front and the younger tattooed stylist in the back. I settled into a chair to wait with a magazine while Lash finished up with a customer.
When he was ready he greeted me with a warm hand shake and ushered me into the chair.
Almost the entire time he snipped away at the mangled mess that was my unkempt hair we chatted about a variety of topics: my travels, what I did for work, where he had traveled, some of his customers who had traveled and on and on.
He told me about his long time friend Richmond who traveled to south east Asia performing dance routines on rollerskates for 6 years down there.
A regular of his wandered in about halfway through my haircut. The man, whose name I forget now, was a basketball coach for some private school about an hour and a half away. He had driven over an hour and a half to visit Lash for a trim.
At this point he broke out the cups of wine, it was a chilled white, nothing high end but definitely refreshing. The three of us chatted while Lash finished up buzzing and snipping away until I had a polished haircut worthy of any reputable character from a 1940’s film.
The basketball coach sat down for his trim and Lash poured me a second round of wine. We stood around chatting, Lash cutting hair, me sipping on wine when lo-and-behold (sorry for the expression) Richmond showed up.
I chatted with Richmond for a good twenty minutes about his travels in Asia, his booking agents, the bars in Korea and Thailand, venues he performed at and so on. Truly an exceptional character and he encouraged my travel to Korea.
All in all, one of my favorite experiences so far in California this trip. I’m definitely going back to Lash’s the next time I need a haircut here and I may just swing by to visit and sip some wine anyways.
