Antique Straight Razors

Delton's Pecan Street Barber Shop

With this concept in mind, Southern opened Delton’s Pecan Street Barber Shop in August 2008.

Southern said the downtown Pflugerville business was modeled after the barbershops of the 1930s and ’40s. A row of black leather barber chairs—some more than 100 years old—line the shop’s wooden floors.

The barbershop offers full shaves using antique straight razors and hot lather machines, as well as facials, flat tops, fades and “a lot of things they don’t offer anymore in the corporate-type shops,” Southern said.

Just like his grandfather and uncle, Southern said he makes an effort to know his regular customers by name. He knows where they work, where their fathers worked and where their kids go to school. And perhaps most importantly, he knows how they like their hair cut.

“Most of the salons today are really short-term, get you in and out. We like to build a rapport with the clientele,” Southern said. “You can hang out, get your hair cut and you can stay and talk and joke if you’d like.”

Southern said he picked up the trade at age 14 after his grandfather and uncle told him he needed to learn how to cut his own hair. He went to barber school two years later and finished before he graduated from high school. Since then, he’s worked at barbershops throughout the country, including Tucson, Ariz., New Orleans and Austin.

When he moved to Pflugerville in 2008, Southern decided to open his own shop.

He said residents were immediately receptive to the shop, and he moved to a larger location next door in September.

Delton’s is open seven days a week and only takes walk-ins. The shop caters to male and female customers and has a small beauty salon in the back that offers women’s haircuts, hair coloring and highlights.

Southern’s passion for barbershops has inspired at least one of his longtime clients. Daymond Johnson said Southern encouraged him to pick up the trade.

“He kept telling me to go to barber school,” said Johnson, who has been a customer of Southern’s since 2000. “And that’s what I did.”

Johnson went to barber school in 2008 and began working as a barber at Delton’s eight months ago.

Looking ahead, Southern said he does not plan to move his shop anytime soon. He wants to maintain that old-school atmosphere he feels is lost in more contemporary hair salons.

“My future is to be here a long time—30, 40 years to come,” Southern said, “and be that old guy who’s been over here at the corner of First and Pecan.

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