Longtime owner of Paco’s Barbershop plans to hang up the clippers

The rich and storied history of La Cañada Flintridge is chronicled in many official forums, but nestled away in a storefront of the Plaza de La Cañada, another sort of historian is quietly at work.

Frank Ruiz has been the sole proprietor of Paco’s Barbershop for the past 55 years and has trimmed the heads of dignitaries and magnates, scientists and artists alike, many from the time they were mere tots.

He’s heard confessions and tall tales in equal measure, snipping and brushing while clients shared news of weddings, births and deaths. He’s been the man behind countless “baby’s first” haircuts and still keeps a tin pirate’s treasure chest stocked with lollipops for the good kids as well as the criers.

“It’s a reward for being good, but even if they weren’t good and were screaming their heads off, you still give them a lollipop to bribe them,” he said, divulging an industry secret.

But the pages of this unofficial chronicle of life in La Cañada are numbered — Ruiz, 83, has been looking for someone to take over the business he’s groomed over the course of a lifetime. In a Craigslist ad posted most recently last week, he offered the business for $68,000.

“This is an excellent opportunity. Seller will fully train for two weeks,” reads the ad his granddaughter helped him post online.

Ruiz hopes to find a buyer willing not only to purchase the equipment, furniture and fixtures, but to keep the long-tenured staff, and the tradition, going forward.

“I’d really prefer another barber (buy the business). I would love to have the barbers here continue with the job, because they have so many clients,” he said. “That would be my first choice, to keep it going.”

Sharpening skills

Ruiz first considered the profession in 1952, after his brother-in-law suggested he join him in what was then a promising industry. He honed the craft while serving in the Air Force, getting to know some of the top brass at March Air Force Base in Riverside County.

“I was making 35 cents with each haircut. That’s what barbers were asking for at the base,” he recalled.

Discharged from the military in 1955, Ruiz went to Moler Barber College to make his trade official. One year later, with license in hand, Ruiz rode his motorcycle all over the Southland looking for a storefront where he could set up a shop of his own. That’s when he got a lead on a space in La Cañada.

“Somebody told me about the Foothills. I looked it up on a map, jumped on my bike and came up here,” Ruiz said.

He set up a chair in a small shop at the current site of Flintridge Proper, with a simple “Frank Ruiz Barber” sign outside. When he later moved into the Plaza de La Cañada, his sister-in-law suggested he do something to punch things up.

“She and her husband said, why don’t you change your name?” he recalled, adding that she’d studied Spanish under a teacher named “Paco.”

Short for Francisco, Paco was a perfect fit, so Ruiz changed the name and Paco’s Barbershop was born.

A ‘crowning pleasure’

More than a half-century later, Paco’s clientele is consistent, but the Highland Park resident finds himself riding out a profession ebbing in favor of quick and dirty cheap cuts on one hand and high-priced salons on the other. While still in good health, retirement seems a sensible option.

“It’s time, especially for my wife,” he says of Mary Lou, his wife of 40 years. “It’s time to get out and do more golf.”

The prospect of Paco’s closing is a sad one, especially for the handful of employees who’ve stayed the course for decades. Manuella Daruvala, who answered a newspaper want ad 38 years ago, says its hard to think of saying goodbye.

“I like the area, and I like the clientele,” Daruvala said. “We get a lot of repeat customers. It’s like that bar where everybody knows your name — Cheers. It’s just like that.”

Co-worker Russ McDonald started working part time in the 1970s and now works full time. He characterized Ruiz as a boss who demands perfection but is fair and just in his dealings with others. That’s crucial in a business like barbering, that relies heavily on maintaining good relationships, McDonald added.

“It’s being able to really focus on their interests and connecting with that as well as appreciating giving a good haircut,” he said. “And when they like it, that’s always rewarding in itself. That is like the crowning pleasure of being a barber.”

Regular service

Ruiz admits it will be hard to part with the shop’s faithful staff and the clients he’s come to know since 1960. He agrees with McDonald that there’s something intimate about the act of giving, and receiving, a haircut.

“We’ve been cutting their hair for years, and it gets pretty close; we know their families,” he said. “We can feel some of the pressures these guys are under.”

Among Paco’s tried and true regulars is Dan Barba, an Arcadia resident who grew up in La Cañada and returns to visit his mother and get a fresh cut. Now 70, Barba’s come in since he was 15.

He came to the store on Friday with a poster of a P-38 airplane, a gift for Ruiz to add to his aeronautic-themed collection, in full display on the shop’s otherwise plain walls.

“I like the friendliness here, it’s just the atmosphere,” Barba later said as Ruiz finished up the cut and dry and got out a vintage Oster Sim-U-Lax hand massager. “There’s a lot of people my age who have their children coming here. Some of them probably have their grandchildren coming here.”

As Ruiz massaged Barba’s shoulders, the two talked about parents and wives and years gone by. This is what makes the business so rewarding, Ruiz said.

“I want them to know how much I appreciate it,” he added. “They can get a haircut anywhere. I tell people, you passed a hell of a lot of barber shops to come here — and maybe I leave some kind of good feeling, I hope.”