East PDX Today

A family-owned group of franchise barber shops in the Portland metro area is moving at a steady clip to get the shops back up and running after the months-long COVID-19 shutdown.

Mark Spiegelberg, business development manager for his family’s 11 The Barbers locations, said family members decided to shut the shops down in mid-March, two days before the state issued its coronavirus closure order.

“We decided to lay off all 125 employees just because of the need to protect their safety,” Spiegelberg said, noting that this gave the workers some extra time to file for unemployment before the deluge of jobless claims that followed the state order.

“In the state of Oregon, the unemployment line was crazy,” he added.

Under Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s reopening strategy, salons and barber shops can now reopen provided they follow a number of restrictions, including the use of personal protective equipment, social distancing and sanitizing procedures.

Two of the Spiegelbergs’ shops have been able to reopen, although the process of cutting men’s hair at the shops now takes longer due to the safety procedures. The stores have aimed to provide the comforts of an old-fashioned barber shop, including hot-lather neck shaves, sports themes, and a selection of customers’ favorite newspapers and magazines, according to the The Barbers website.

“Twenty of our employees are back,” he said. “We booked up fast, and we were very safe. … A county official came in and said we were doing a really good job.”

Hard work by his mother Kimberly Spiegelberg, and others helped the business to expand before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, according to Spiegelberg.

“We didn’t have huge profit margins to begin with but things were good,” he said.

The company is working with local government officials to get the other nine stores back in operation, according to Spiegelberg, who added that reopening rules require limiting capacity, removing some chairs from the floor and extending cleaning operations to protect customers’ safety.

Although the company had to max out an existing equity line during the crisis to keep afloat, the family didn’t have to take any extreme steps, such as taking out a second mortgage, he said.

If Congress were to pass additional legislation to help small businesses deal with the effects of the coronavirus, lawmakers should consider extending the federal Paycheck Protection Program beyond the month of June or offer additional grant programs to help firms get back on their feet, Spiegelberg said. 

“Small businesses are kind of at a crossroads, so it’s important that we help them out,” he said.