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Business & Tech

Red's Barber Shop Clips Its Way to 80 Years

The New Baltimore barber shop is the longest-running family-owned business in New Baltimore.

The floor is coated in hair, walls are lined with sports memorabilia and model boats and golf plays on the TV.

It's just another ordinary Friday at .

But Red's itself is nothing ordinary. Started in 1931, Red's is the longest-running family owned business in New Baltimore, which means they've been cutting hair since the Great Depression, well before World War II, and back when Washington Street was made of bricks.

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"People know the name, they know the shop, they know me as the grandson," said Red's owner Tim "Trimmer" Aurand, the third generation Aurand to own and operate the store. 

His grandfather, Floyd Maynard "Red" Aurand opened the shop just down the street from its current location. at the corner of 24 Mile Road and Huntley Avenue is named after him, in honor of his contributions to little league sports.

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Tim Aurand has been working at Red's since 1971, when his father Clair passed away while Tim was in barber college. The only other barber at Red's is Mike Racz, who has been working there since 1991.

"I wanted to keep the barber shop tradition going, to work in a small town shop, and this is the place," said Racz. "I could have worked for my uncle in Romeo, but that wasn't going to happen."

The two men say have a a customer base of several hundred regulars that come in whenever they need a haircut. The clients are usually always male. This isn't a beauty salon, not by a long shot. No one talks politics or gossip. The conversation subjects are just business, cars, sports, motorcycles and women.

"It's a guys' place. Men can be men. Some traditions never die," says Racz.

And the decor shows it.

Aurand, who served in the Navy, started building model ships because the younger kids liked them. The wall of boats includes a World War II aircraft carrier, a Viking oar-powered boat, and Aurand's favorite, a replicate Mississippi River steamboat. Racz has decorated the walls with his favorite sports teams, mainly the University of Michigan Wolverines. 

There's a biplane made out of empty beers cans hanging in the corner, and the reading material includes Guns & Ammo and Playboy.

"I love the atmosphere. I love being able to talk to customers. You start getting repeat customers, and soon you get to know generations of the same family," said Racz.

"It's the customers," says Aurand. "You meet new people every day, too. Mike's got his costumers, I've got mine, and sometimes we switch."

The oldest man to have his hair cut in Red's was 105 years old when he last came in. Babies as young as eight or nine months are brought into Red's for their very first trim.

On the wall, there is a map of Florida, where all the local snowbirds are encouraged to place a pin representing their winter hideout. At it's max, the map has close to 65 pins in it at a time. Many times, when someone who has moved from the area comes back to visit family and friends, they still stop by Red's for a trim. They'll even stop by and say goodbye before moving out of town.

The cactus against the wall used to be moved outside in the summer to get more sunlight, but now it's too big to move out the door. Aurand estimates that it's close to 25 years old. The board by the door has plenty of business cards pinned to it along with pictures of the shop from back in the day. The chairs customers sit in when they get snipped and sheared still have ash trays for cigarettes in them. And the cash register doesn't even use electricity; it's been in Red's since Aurand was a boy, sweeping up hair off the floor.

They're not without a sense of humor at Red's. Some of their newspaper ads boast that they have "1 and 1/2 barbers" and that they literally stand behind their work.

"All our haircuts are made in America, guaranteed," joked Aurand.

As far as turning 80, Red's has nothing special in the works. They just plan to keep trimming, cutting and buzzing heads. 

"We're just going to get older," said Aurand. "No plans on moving anytime soon, we'll be here a while."

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