Curmudgeon
By Chuck Cagara
Surprise Christmas Visitor
This unlikely visitor to our warm, sunny climes has been spotted atop the Members Only Barber Shop at State and Mission streets. Must be using a faulty GPS unit.
Source: Member’s Only Barber Shop
Every year owner Henry Franco decorates his barbershop for Christmas. Not just the traditional trimming with paintings on the windows and a few lights; but the entire storefront, and inside as well. This year the Members Only Barber Shop located at 2005 State Street will be transformed into a Christmas Winter Wonderland, with the Polar Bear (back by popular demand).
Henry Franco — just Franco to his clients, opened his business in 1995 and has been making Christmas come true every year since then. You may remember the decorations from the shop’s previous location on Victoria Street; the small building was completed decorated, from bottom to the rooftop. One year it was a polar bear dressed in rubber duckie pajamas on an igloo, and the next year the entire building was transformed into a gingerbread house.
As expected, Franco has been awarded numerous medals by the Downtown Organization’s holiday decorating contest, and they hang proudly in his shop. As a Tonsorial Artist, Franco decorated the interior of his shop with a traditional barbershop theme, and everywhere you look you will see his other artistic abilities as a Modern Artist; it’s an Art Gallery like no other.
Christmas is not what it used to be, “It doesn’t look like Christmas anymore,” Franco said. “I just want to bring back some of that joy, I enjoy the smiles it brings people, and I love to watch all the people stopping by to take pictures”.
This year Franco brought back the Polar Bear as the headliner, and he is already making plans for Christmas 2019. Stop by to see the winter wonderland.
For more information, call 805.965.1845, or visit http://www.membersonlybarbershop.com/
