LOGAN SQUARE — Joe's Barbershop is raising its prices for the first time in 17 years, but its loyal customers say that won't keep them from sitting in its chairs.
"My father has had super-low overhead for 17 years," said Joe Caccavella Jr., a third-generation barber. Pointing to property taxes, he said the price hike "has a lot to do with Logan Square and whatever it is becoming."
"We don't want to do it," Caccavella said.
Beginning next year, all rates will go up $5. A regular haircut will cost $20 instead of $15, a shave $25 instead of $20, and a Sunday haircut will cost $25 instead of $20.
Loyal customers, who often find themselves waiting behind several others on any day the Bears aren't playing, said an extra few dollars is worth paying at Joe's, which has been named "Best Barbershop" in the Chicago Reader every year since 2010.
"Even at 20 bucks, it's the best haircut I can get," said Stone Hansard, a 25-year-old Avondale resident, who has been coming to Joe's for a year.
The first Joe's Barbershop opened in 1968 in a two-chair room on California Avenue near the Logan Square post office. In 1985, Joe Caccavella Sr. bought a small building at 2641 W. Fullerton Ave. and expanded his operation to three chairs.
The shop also has room for a small refrigerator full of beers, an old TV that plays VHS tapes throughout the day, and from Thanksgiving to New Year's, jugs of wine that Joe Sr. sells after making it in his neighbor's basement in Little Italy.
Asked about the price increase announced on the shop's website, Joe Sr. said: "I don't know about a price increase. Ask my son about that."
"My dad's whole thing is to come here, do his thing and cut hair," Joe Jr. said. "He didn't even know we raised the prices."
"With everything else like food, gas and everything, prices for everything else have gone up in the world, but people notice when the barber raises his prices," Joe Jr. said. "People shouldn't complain as long as we are cheaper than SuperCuts."
But while the prices finally are inching above those at SuperCuts (The nearest one in Roscoe Village charges $15.95.), that doesn't matter to Joe's customers, who often travel from far beyond Logan Square.
"It doesn't really matter to me," said Rodrigo Diaz, a 37-year-old Des Plaines resident who has been a regular for more than a year and a half. "The haircuts are good here, the prices are right, and Joe Sr.'s a good guy."
