Waterloo barber duo retires after 50-plus years each in the trade
Werner Meyer, Eddie Halvorson staples at Zarifis Barber Shop
WATERLOO — It’s often said the best new tips come out of barbershops and beauty salons.
But the biggest breaking news from one hallowed homegrown hair haven hails from the cutters, not the clientele.
Two local barbers with a combined century of snipping, trimming, grooming and slicking back are kicking back and hanging up their clippers.
Werner Meyer and Eddie Halvorson, co-owners of Zarifis Barber Shop at Ridgeway Plaza, are retiring. They've been cutting hair for most of their 50-plus-year careers at the shop and have owned the place for more than 20 years.
Both recently attended the funeral of the boss, friend, mentor and founder of their business, Jim Zarifis, who died in August. His loved ones welcomed Meyer and Halvorson like family.
Their old friend’s passing brought things full circle for Meyer and Halverson, who in turn are now passing on the business to an up-and-comer in their vocation. Andrew Brymer, who runs Reflections hair salon on La Porte Road, will take over operations of Zarifis Barber Shop under the same name and location.
Brymer is a 2020 Waterloo West High graduate who grew up on the neighborhood around Ridgeway Plaza and attended barber school at The Salon Professional Academy in Cedar Falls. He’s looking forward to operating a traditional barber shop with an established clientele to complement the younger client base he serves at Reflections. Each shop has a unique ambiance he plans to maintain. He’s also taking on barbers.
Meyer’s and Halvorson’s last day will be Dec. 2.
Both natives of Minnesota, Meyer and Halvorson each came to the Cedar Valley area in their youths with family.
Meyer, originally from Parkers Prairie in west central Minnesota, came to Readlyn in Bremer County northeast of Waterloo in 1963 for his last three years of high school, graduating from Wapsie Valley High School in Fairbank and starting barber school in 1967.
Halvorson, a native of Thief River Falls in northwest Minnesota about 70 miles from the Canadian border, came to Waterloo in 1957 when he was in fourth or fifth grade. He graduated from East High School, was drafted into the Army and served three years as a military policeman. He returned to Waterloo and considered police work. But at the urging of family, including his father in law, Del Bowers, a longtime Waterloo City Council member who served a stint as mayor in the 1980s, he entered barber school in 1971.
“I started here in '67 right out of barber school, stayed all 56 years,” Meyer said. Halverson, in the trade 54 years, worked for eight or nine months under Bob “Rocky” Stone at his shop under the Music Box Lounge on Commercial Street in downtown Waterloo. When the shop was relocated for the construction of ConWay Civic Center, now the Waterloo Convention Center at Sullivan Brothers Plaza, Halverson faced the prospect of being without work during the move.
“It would have been another three months. I didn’t have time for that. I had three kids.” he said.
“My father-in-law interceded, and I ended up with Jim Zarifis because Jim and him were friends. So I came up here and interviewed and got the job,” Halverson said.
Zarifis’ original location opened in 1956 near The Rath Packing Co. meatpacking plant. It moved to Ridgeway Plaza at Kimball and Ridgway avenues in 1966.
Meyer said a lot of Rath workers and retirees from the original Zarifis location came to the new shop.
“The clientele has changed a lot over the years, between the economy, styles,” he said.
“When I came here, long hair was coming in; it was the start of the '70s,” Halvorson said. “I thought, ‘Oh God help me; I really don’t know about long hair.’"
He was adept at flattops.
“You learn a lot,” he said.
Meyer, Halvorson and Zarifis all also held leadership positions within the barbers union.
Meyer said he met Zarifis when he came to Cedar Rapids, where Meyer went to barber college, and watched Meyer cut hair for a day before hiring him.
“He was a good guy,” Meyer said. “He taught us a lot. He knew we were just out of school and took time to teach us.”
“Jim was personable about things. He wasn’t just a boss. He became a friend,” Halvorson said.
When Zarifis died it brought a rush of emotions for his proteges. They knew it was time for them to pass on the shop as he had to them.
The shop has had an eclectic clientele.
“Oh man, that goes on and on and on,” Meyer said. “Every day of the week you get somebody new, and you hear new stories, different customers. There’s all kinds of them. You just can’t pick out one.”
”At the barber college, as well as here, we were always taught, you stay away from politics and religion, and just personal stuff,” Halvorson said. “But you got to know that guy. They become just not a customer. They become a friend of yours. And they will tell you things they don’t even tell their own relation about their life. Like a bartender.”
There are rumors and tips.
”My favorite expression is when my friends say, ‘Well, what are the rumors at the barber shop?’ I always say, ‘Well, the barber shop is all factual stuff. The beauty shop is all rumors,’" Meyer joked.
Halvorson said he’d heard the story, probably apocryphal, over the years from a couple of city officials that there was an antiquated law on the books prohibiting barbers from eating onions during the workday. But he’s glad one antiquated state law prohibiting female hairdressers from cutting men’s hair is off the books.
Business has ebbed and flowed over the years. Meyer recalled a major strike at John Deere slowed business just a few months after he began work at the shop in 1967. He agreed the long hair styles of the 1970s really affected business. “We picked up after that,” he said.
Business slacked off again when Deere cut 9,000 jobs from its Waterloo work force and Rath ceased operation after 90 years.
“The day before Christmas in 1982 was a tremendous day of business,” and it “chopped right off” after the holiday. “People left town from Rath; John Deere lost many people who left town and Rath’s just closed up, as we all know.”
That got a little touchy for Halvorson because his father-in-law, Bowers, himself a longtime Rath employee, was mayor at the time.
“My father-in-law always told me, ‘Don’t tell then you’re my son-in-law; it’s best not to say that because people are going to say something,” Halvorson said. “There was a guy came in here, he was a little older than Del. This gentleman — a good friend — he says, ‘You know that mayor, he doesn’t do a darn thing. He’s a horse’s … butt. I won’t use the expression. I told my father-in-law that and he said, ‘That’s what happens. That’s why you keep your mouth shut.’"
”There been a lot of highs and lows; overall, it’s been a tremendous 56 years,” Meyer said, noting they’re leaving the business to Brymer on a high note. “Business right now is at maximum peak for us. We have never been this busy, all the time I’ve been here.” Since a third, female, barber retired 15 years ago, “we’ve been just swamped,
”Business overall has been good. When you’re in any kind of business, you’re going to have highs and lows,” Meyer said. Halvorson also noted they had supportive local bankers through the lean times.
And Meyer and Halvorson have gotten along through all that.
”When you work this close together, you have to get along to make the business work,” Meyer said. “I probably spend more time with Werner than I do with my wife,” Halvorson said. He recalled 11- and 12-hour days when the shop took walk-in business in the late afternoon hours and they’d be swamped. When they switched to business by appointment only, “that changed our lifestyle a lot,” and allowed them to attended evening school events with family.
And life will change a lot again after Dec. 2. They’ve pared back working hours over the years for health reasons. Both have had time off at different intervals, and the overhead costs of running a business continue when one is off.
They were put in touch with Brymer through real estate agent Fred Miehe. “We were in the right place at the right time, as fate would have it,” Meyer said.
Brymer, who’s operated Reflections since March, is ready to pick up at Zarifis where Meyer and Halvorson leave off -- beginning with keeping the Zarifis name. He feels the same way about his trade as his predecessors.
“It feels less like a job to me,” he said, “hanging out, cutting hair and getting to know people. I’m pretty good with keeping conversation and taking care of people and good, quality customer service. I think they’ll like it.” The two shops have complementary hours, with Reflections open longer into the evenings and on Sundays and Mondays when most hair establishments are closed.
Zarfis has a great location, Brymer said, and it will now be even better with the commercial development across Kimball Avenue on old Schoitz Hospital site, including a Kwik Star convenience store, in addition to various coffee establishments.
He is contemplating one addition which should make his predecessors smile.
”It already was a good trafficked location,” Brymer said. “But now, if I put up one of those moving barber poles that spin and light up, you’ll see that easily. We’re going to try our hardest and hope it works out. But they’ve been doing so well for so many years, as long as you take care of everything and do everything right, it should work out pretty good.”
His predecessors are looking ahead to the new chapters in their lives as well.
”My dad always told me, ‘You will know the day when you should retire.’ You just know it. And that’s exactly how I feel,” Meyer said.
”This retirement stuff could be a little interesting. But I suppose I’ll adjust,” Halvorson said with a smile.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
From our founder, Julie Gammack:
”Have you explored the variety of writers in the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative? They are from around the state and contribute commentary and feature stories of interest to those who care about Iowa. Please pick five you’d like to support by becoming paid. It helps keep them going.’
Columnists
· Nicole Baart: This Stays Here, Sioux Center
· Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights
· Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
· Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
· Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, Roundup
· Steph Copley: It Was Never a Dress, Johnston
· Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
· Suzanna de Baca: Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
· Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
· Arnold Garson: Second Thoughts, Okoboji and Sioux Falls
· Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
· Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
· Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
· Rob Gray: Rob Gray’s Area, Ankeny
· Nik Heftman: The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa
· Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
· Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
· Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
· Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
· Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
· Letters from Iowans, Iowa
· Darcy Maulsby, Keepin’ It Rural, Calhoun County
· Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
· Alison McGaughey, The Inquisitive Quad Citizen, Quad Cities
· Kurt Meyer: Showing Up, St. Ansgar
· Wini Moranville: Wini’s Food Stories, Des Moines
· Jeff Morrison: Between Two Rivers, Cedar Rapids
· Kyle Munson: Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
· Jane Nguyen: The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
· John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
· Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
· Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
· Dave Price: Dave Price’s Perspective, Des Moines
· Macey Spensley: The Midwest Creative, Norwalk
· Larry Stone: Listening to the Land, Elkader
· Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
· Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
· Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
· Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
· Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
The Iowa Writers Collaborative is also proud to ally with Iowa Capital Dispatch