Tales from the Arlington Barber Shop closing after 73 years; owner is going to miss pals
Matt Soergel, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
6 min read
Across University Boulevard North, there's a big spanking-new Wawa gas station, but from Paul Hotaling's vantage point on the west side of the road in a modest storefront that butts right up the sidewalk, it feels almost as if it's still the 1950s.
Outside his Arlington Barber Shop, there's a sign that reads "HERE'S A BARBER SHOP!," a greeting that's been there for decades. Inside, Hotaling waits for customers while sitting in a vintage Koken hydraulic barber chair. On the wall are New York Yankees memorabilia and pictures — Yogi! Mantle! Maris! ― along with some assorted Gators and Jaguars signs.
Here's a barber shop, indeed.
The Arlington Barber Shop opened April 4, 1950, before the baby boom that would transform Jacksonville's Arlington neighborhood after the Mathews Bridge was built to connect it to downtown.
Paul Hotaling, who's been at Arlington Barber Shop for 27 of its 73 years in existence, is, with some regret, shutting the old store down on Dec. 23.
Before that, it was kind of country, a long drive around to the city. But that's where Scott Walker opened up the Arlington Barber Shop 73 years ago, moving into a new building on University Boulevard.
Hotaling came to work with him 27 years ago and remembers Walker telling him how good the quail hunting used to be just behind the shop.
He also remembers in his first week there calling Walker "the boss," to which Walker gently corrected him: "Paul, I'm not your boss. We work together."
That's the kind of place it was. "And for the next 22 years that’s just how he treated me," Hotaling said. "Just a swell individual.”
Oct. 14, 1987: Barber Scott Walker, left, cuts Jim Williams' hair. Williams has been a customer for about a dozen years. Walker's 'horned bass' is reflected in the mirror in the background. He put the horns on the fish. This image was taken as part of a road series on University Boulevard planned for The Florida Times-Union.
Hotaling already knew his way around a razor and a pair of scissors, but Walker did work to instill this philosophy into him: Treat people the right way, and they'll treat you the right way.
End of an era at barber shop
Hotaling now owns the old barber shop that Walker — who died at 93 a few years ago — began. But its long run is just about done.
He will close up for good on Dec. 23, and he doesn't know what's going to go into the space after the shop is gone.
But he's 79, and taxes on his landlord had gone up, meaning his rent would have to go up too, he said. There probably aren't enough $14 haircuts (two bucks off if you're over 65) or $4 beard trims to make it work.
The thing is, Hotaling is not really sure about retiring. It’s going to be tough not being around people; he likes talking with people — a handy skill for a barber. He joked with customers one recent morning: He'll be coming by their houses to cut and talk.
“No way I’m just going to go home and sit," he said.
To be sure, home might keep him somewhat busy. He and his wife have three children and nine grandkids, who are all in town except for the Marine whose portrait, in his dress blues, hangs on the wall. That's grandson Michael Honeycutt, 22, who's up at the base in New River, N.C., where Hotaling will see him on Christmas Eve, the day after his retirement.
Perhaps, he says, he'll spend more time up at the American Legion on Fort Caroline Road. After all, he was in the U.S. Navy for four years where he was a parachute rigger.
After that detail, he trots out a couple of his old jokes from those days: “If we don't let you down right, the undertaker will." And "We’d tell them guys, 'Look, if this chute don’t work, bring it back, we’ll give you a brand new one.’”
'He's my pal'
Richard Wilson got his first haircut at Arlington Barber Shop when he was 7 months old. He came in for what will probably be his last haircut there a couple of weeks before his 62nd birthday, which falls on Christmas Day.
He's always gone there for his haircuts, other than some spells where he lived somewhere other than Arlington. Why change? he says.
"When you’re good, you’re good. I’m one of those same-places people. I eat at the same restaurants, I buy at the same stores, I drink the same beer, I drive the same cars," he said.
Wilson gets the same haircut too, a no-nonsense short cut. "My head's still on, so everything's OK," he said.
He likes that he and Hotaling, and Walker before him, have some history, some friendship. "I don’t want to be just a person in a chair. I want to be somebody you know, and we can talk," he said.
Customer Richard Wilson walks out of the Arlington Barber Shop after what was probably his final haircut there before it closes its doors. "The first time I sat in this chair it was about 61 years ago, when I was 7 months old," he said.
That goes for customer Lyle Bennett too, who's been going to Arlington Barber Shop since he moved to the area 18 years ago. Why? "Him," he said, "pointing to Hotaling, who at this moment was lightly snipping away at the back of his head.
"I can go get a haircut anywhere, but I enjoy his company," Bennett said.
From Cooperstown to Jacksonville
Hotaling was born in Cooperstown, N.Y., (hence his baseball obsession) and became a barber in his hometown of Bainbridge, N.Y., some 51 years ago. He had a shop there until he moved to Jacksonville right after the North Florida snowstorm of 1989.
Don't worry, people told the New Yorker: It doesn't happen that much.
He went to work at the Arlington Barber Shop, which has long since felt like home, these last 27 years. You can see it: In conversation, he keeps bringing the subject back to the people he's met there, cutting their hair all this time.
People like Kevin Oliver, who counts himself a friend as well as a customer. Over the past year, Oliver has had several serious medical challenges, and he says Hotaling would come to his house to give him haircuts and not charge him, knowing that he wasn't able to work.
Hotaling's also been kind, Oliver said, to his son Matt, who's 38 and autistic and not always good with new people he meets. Matt knows Hotaling though, who jokes with him, and Matt knows where the barber keeps his giveaway bubblegum.
Oliver also appreciates this: During the pandemic, when the shop shut down, Hotaling would go to Oliver's house and give Matt his usual buzz cut.
"He's not just my barber," he said. "He's my pal."
Hotaling says he's made many pals during his time at the shop, people from all walks of lives and all kinds of incomes. And he's done it long enough to remember when there used to be big rushes at the shop before school opened, or just before Mother's Day.
A flyer showing recently updated prices shares space on the mirror with photos of historic New York Yankees baseball players while barber Paul Hotaling cuts the hair of regular customer Lyle Bennett.
Guys seem to stick to a regular schedule now, though, not one built around new haircuts and big events on the calendar.
And he's been barbering long enough to know that fashions don't really change that much. “They change, then they go back," he said. "They change, then they go back.”
Now, come Dec. 24, they can keep changing and going back as often as they like, only now without Hotaling behind the old hydraulic barber chair in Arlington.