“We offer traditional full service, men’s grooming services, men’s haircuts, boy’s haircuts, straight razor shaves, hot towels with every haircut, razor finish,” Noel said. “We also offer refreshments: beer, water, root beer for the kids. It’s kind of a throwback to when barbering was really prevalent.”

     Noel has been in the barbershop business for 10 years now and Raymond has been doing it for four and trained under Noel. 

     “The first shop was kind of a rough draft of what we wanted to do here,” Noel said. “Now we’ve hit the nail on the head. We’re very excited.”

     A neat little feature of the Good Guys Barbershop is the “take a ticket” like one would see at a deli. 

     “Sometimes the wait gets so long it is confusing as to who’s up,” Noel said. “We also did that to reduce wait time with the ticket system. If you’re a bunch of numbers back, you can take one, leave, run some errands, get some lunch and explore downtown Oswego, then come back and get a haircut.” 

     The Canal Commons has a real sense of community with business owners helping each other. 

     “We’re not just doing it for ourselves and for our customers but for local businesses as well,” Raymond said.  

     “There’s a lot to see in here that people just don’t know about,” Noel said. 

     “We’re constantly pushing local business,” Raymond said. “We really want our customers to explore while they’re waiting – it’s usually not more than an hour – but we’re a very busy shop.” 

{youtube}9qKQmJnnQ1E|280|400{/youtube}     The full service, a haircut and a shave, will usually take about an hour. 

     “We like to take our time with our customers,” Noel said. 

     “A haircut and a shave is supposed to be a special treat for a guy,” Raymond said. “It’s the closest thing to a spa a guy can get. It’s kind of a retreat.” 

     With the new shop, Noel and Raymond are looking to change a few things compared to how it used to be. 

     “We want to be more family friendly,” Noel said. “Offer services to anybody here. In future years we might want to branch out.” 

     “Quality is our number one concern,” Raymond said. “For a while we’re just going to be putting our time and money into this shop and making sure it’s the nicest shop with the best services.”