Good Guys Barbershop uses grant money to move locations, adds barbers

OSWEGO, N.Y.– Good Guys Barbershop recently moved to a larger location in the Canal Commons building, expanding and adding four new apprentices to their ranks.

The funding came partly from a City of Oswego grant funded by the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, a New York State program that awarded Oswego, among other upstate cities, to build up and modernize their aging central areas.

“We were still gonna do it; it was a foolish expansion,,” owner Keith Raymond said about the expansion. “And the $25,000 we received from the city brought it into reality.”

Raymond said that part of the benefit of moving to a new location was the ability to add more stations and barbers to cut down on wait times. Raymond said that the long wait times can be blamed on how popular Good Guys is.

“On a really busy day, we can do between 130 and 150 haircuts,” Raymond said.

Since the shop has moved storefronts, Raymond said that he has seen an increase in traffic to the shop, but his apprentices will take a few more weeks to be ready to give haircuts on their own.

“We find it best for our quality of standards to train from within,” Raymond said. “So we hire guys who we like, we apprentice them, they’re technically apprentices for two years, but honestly they’re ready to cut solid within a year.”