'Just a friendly barber': Carrboro shop to close in April after 64 years

On a quiet Friday morning in February, Bobby Powell sat in a barber chair while Russ Sturdivant, who has owned Friendly Barber Shop for 30 years, cut his hair. 

Powell has been getting his haircut at the shop for 41 years. When he was 15, his mother dropped him off. Since then, he has taken his three boys there, too. 

“It’s just a friendly barber,” he said. 

But, after 64 years of business on East Main Street in Carrboro, the shop is planning to close at the end of April. Until then, it will be operating at reduced hours, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday. Even with reduced hours, the shop is still nearly full with regulars at 9 a.m.

“Thirty years is long enough to do anything,” Sturdivant said. “I decided to close it down, I was going to sell it but all that fell through.” 

Sturdivant’s father, Grady, opened the shop in 1961. He had been working in TV repair when one winter, he went to get a haircut at a barbershop. 

“The man who owns it said, ‘Go to barber school and then come work for me,’” Sturdivant said. “And so he did — to get out of the elements. He worked across the street for one year and then opened this place.” 

After his father struggled to find extra barbers, Russ Sturdivant started to work at the shop as well. 

Instead of mirrors and televisions, the shop’s back wall hosts Tar Heel paraphernalia, yellowed newspaper clippings and framed photos of family and friends. A folded American flag, flown in Afghanistan by a friend of Sturdivant’s, hangs on the wall. His friend gifted the flag — and a wooden, hand-made saddle box — to the shop after his year-long tour. 

Phillip Knox, a former barber at the shop, said every time he looked over at the wall, he noticed something unique that he hadn't seen before. 

“I’ve always kind of referred to that wall as almost like a museum of Carrboro,” Knox said. 

Former UNC men’s basketball player Eric Montross, who was the starting center when UNC won the 1993 NCAA championship, is also featured among the countless photographs. Knox said that Montross was a long time customer and helped popularize the shop whenever he would get his haircut there.

Knox’s father was also a barber, who had worked with Russ Sturdivant. 

“I would not be anywhere I’m at without my father and his experience and connections, kind of the stuff he’s built of himself,” he said. 

The shop’s existence as a long-standing local business adds to Carrboro’s culture and identity, Knox said. He said the shop has historically been an old-school business that’s a pulse of the town and a place for people to chat and share opinions. As far as Knox knows, it's the only traditional barber shop in the area. 

Sturdivant said he plans to take about six months off once the store closes. But regulars will still have a place to go. 

“I am building a shop at my house for my regulars,” he said. “I would never turn my back on them because they kept me in business all these years.”  

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