Glamour Is Back
Reminiscing about his child-hood, Jim Valenzuela keeps spiraling back to the same fond memory. He’s with his father at a corner barbershop in Tucson, Ariz.
It’s not only a place for a shave and a haircut. It’s where memories are made. Men gather here to discuss sports, business and current events. Outside, a barber’s pole with a helix of colored stripes marks the spot.
After Valenzuela himself became a father in the 1990s, he wanted to make the same type of memories with his son. He went in search of a bar- bershop, but times had changed. He couldn’t nd a barbershop like the one from his childhood. “All the bar- bershops I found were dirty and dusty and devoid of style,” he says.
He set out to change that. Today, Valenzuela sits on top of a franchise empire with 35 V’s Barbershops in more than a dozen states. His plans include opening 20 to 30 more in the next two years. He is no longer a boy among men.
