Hair to Stay : For Decades, The Office Has Dispensed Close Shaves--and Bad Jokes

The outside world may change, but life inside Paul Wimer’s barbershop never really does.

For 36 years, Wimer has held court at The Office, a city fixture where you can still get a haircut for $10 and count on hearing a good story or two.

“People want to go where they are made to feel welcome,” Wimer said as he performed his umpteenth haircut that week. “The best thing that can happen is to walk in and have someone call you by name. That doesn’t happen at the bank anymore or at the gas station. But it does here.”

The waiting room remains a gathering place for men to swap stories and read the newspaper. In addition to a haircut, customers can still ask for an old-fashioned, straight-razor shave complete with hot towels and coconut oil. And they can always count on a joke or two from the barber himself.

“After I’m done with a shave, I sit the customer up and get him a glass of water to see if his throat leaks,” joked Wimer.

In its prime, The Office was a bustling 10-chair barbershop in the heart of the city’s downtown, and Wimer had the front chair. Now, the shop is a one-man show in a nondescript strip mall off of Ball Road.

But the customers keep coming, some driving from as far away as Dana Point for regular appointments with the 60-year-old Wimer, who describes himself as a “dinosaur.”

“I drive 40 miles to get here because he cuts my hair the way I like it,” said 73-year-old Jack Gardner of Mission Viejo. “I’ve been coming here for 30 years because it just feels right. It’s a nice atmosphere.”

Norm Edelman, also a customer for 30 years, agreed.

“It’s a force of habit,” said Edelman, a retired salesman who moved from Anaheim to Huntington Beach six years ago. “I like Paul. We swap stories. If I come home with a bad joke, my wife says, ‘You’ve been to see Paul.’ ”

Jack Harrison, 52, comes in for a haircut and a shave every two weeks. He discovered Wimer’s shop one day 35 years ago while walking home from Anaheim High School.

“I was on the football team and needed a haircut. I went in and I’ve been coming in ever since,” he said. “Most barbers won’t give you full service anymore. Paul is one of the last great barbers still around. He does things the way they used to do them.”

For years, the shop was a fixture on Lincoln Avenue, across the street from City Hall. This gave Wimer a front-row seat to the local political scene. In the early 1960s, he would watch Gene Autry walk out of City Hall each night during the negotiations to bring the California Angels to the city.

The location made it convenient for many city employees and politicians to get a quick haircut. Among the regulars was former U.S. Sen. John Seymour, once the city mayor.

Former Councilman Irv Pickler has been a customer for more than 30 years. During his 12 years on the council, Pickler said, his visits often turned into impromptu town hall meetings.

“Paul would tell all the guys in the waiting room that I was on the council, then they’d all tell me their concerns or complaints,” Pickler said. “It was always in a real relaxed atmosphere. You felt like you were in someone’s home.”

Wimer began working at The Office in 1959, after spending two years in the Army and working for a brief time as a barber in Los Angeles. He became a partner in the business in 1970 and took it over five years later.

The shop lost its downtown location 17 years ago when redevelopment forced it to move, something that still rankles Wimer: “They ripped the heart out of Anaheim. There are people who still complain that there is no center of the city.”

But redevelopment wasn’t solely responsible for the decline in the barber business. Longer hairstyles and the electric razor made their dents.

“In the old days, people were shaved every other day,” Wimer said. “They’d have their own mug and leave it in the barbershop with their own brush. Most people today who get a shave get it for the relaxation. The thought of paying $9 for a shave doesn’t seem economically sound since you can buy a can of shaving cream and a razor for a lot less.”

To survive, Wimer occasionally has had to change with the times. But, he said, he has his limits.

“I’ve been asked to do my share of Mohawks, which I don’t do,” he said, laughing. “But it’s really run the gantlet from hair down to the shoulders to shaved off the head. I’ve been through ponytails, feathered hair and all the rest. The kids today are rediscovering flattops, and they think they invented them. They don’t realize that their grandfathers did.”

Although shops like Wimer’s aren’t nearly as numerous as they once were, there are still 26,027 licensed barbers in California. But the number pales in comparison with the approximately 300,000 licensed cosmetologists in the state, according to the state licensing board.

Still, the profession has remained steady over the last decade, said Don Knauss, former president of the National Board of Barber Examiners. “It’s not a growth industry, but we can place every one of our barbers in a job,” Knauss said.

Wimer, who has been married to Shirley since a few months after he started work at The Office, has three sons and five grandchildren, all of whom go to him for haircuts. He has no intention of retiring, although someday he plans to cut down on his 50-hour workweek.

Pickler, Wimer’s friend and customer, jokes that he plans to remain a regular even though he has less hair to cut than he once did.

“I think shops like Paul’s are what is missing in a lot of communities,” Pickler said. “Anaheim has grown to more than 300,000 people, so it’s nice to have something that brings you back to the years that a lot of us remember.”