Mr. Balboa cutting four-year-old Jack
Clement's hair
Wayne Moses, Balboa's only remaining
barber, started coming down to Balboa with his parents in the mid 1940s. He recalls the
family would rent a single-wall house with Murphy Beds for $30.00 a week. The regular rent
was $35.00, but because they left the place so clean they got a special rate.
In 1956, the family bought a house on Balboa
Boulevard. In 1959 when Wayne got married, his father bought a lot at 512 W. Balboa
Boulevard for $10,000 and built the present two store front, two apartment building for
$30,000. Still the original location of Mr. Balboa, the only remaining barber shop in
Balboa. |
At the time Mr. Balboa opened its doors, there were four other barber shops in
Balboa between A Street and Mr. Balboa, including one in the lobby of the Balboa Theater.
Wayne remembers, "As the other shops closed they [the customers] moved to the next
shop, which was here." By the early 1970s, Mr. Balboa was the only barber shop left
in Balboa.
The Mr. Balboa Barber Shop
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"When
hair was long, I took two years of advanced hair styling at Golden West College,"
Wayne adds. He was then asked to be on the college's advisory board. 
The Original Gold Leaf
Window Sign
Wayne's oldest customer is 92 years old. "I
just lost one yesterday," Wayne reflects. In one case, Wayne has served four
generations of the same family, father, son, grandson, and great-granddaughter.
Wayne still keeps his late father's last barber's license on display
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