The coffee-menu wall inside The Barber Lounge

About the Lounge · Est. 2017

Nine years of good haircuts and better regulars.

One room in Guelph became three shops in two towns, without changing what the room was supposed to feel like. Here’s how that happened, and who did it.

Book a chair The story so far ↓

The story

The Barber Lounge started with a question: why does getting a haircut so often feel like a queue, when it could feel like a visit?

Product shelves and warm wood interior at The Barber Lounge

In 2017, Griffin Rice answered it with one room on Victoria Rd, on Guelph’s east side. The formula was unfashionably simple: hire barbers who love the craft, give every client a real consultation, pull a real espresso while they wait, and let the room do the rest.

It worked the way good shops work — slowly, then suddenly. Regulars brought brothers, then sons, then fathers, and the original room grew into today’s nine-chair bench. Fergus asked next and got the downtown St Andrew St shop; then Guelph’s south end got Downey Rd, the newest room.

The name was always the plan, not a pun. A lounge is somewhere you settle in. Between the coffee menu on the chalkboard, the records, and a shop dog named Lady Rice with strong opinions about biscuits, plenty of clients book the last appointment of the day on purpose.

2017

Founded on Victoria Rd

Shops across two towns

Barbers on the roster

4.7★

380+ Google reviews

Nine years, three rooms

The road here

2017

One room on Victoria Rd

Griffin Rice opens The Barber Lounge on Guelph's east side — a barbershop built like a living room, with an espresso machine where the attitude usually goes.

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The regulars arrive

Word travels one good cut at a time. The chairs fill with people who stop needing to explain what they want, and the room grows into a nine-chair bench run by Guelph manager Alex Ross.

2023

Fergus calls

The second shop opens on St Andrew St W in downtown Fergus, bringing the standard to Centre Wellington — stone storefronts, the Grand River, same coffee.

2025

Three shops, one standard

Downey Rd opens in Guelph's south end. Three shops, two towns, fifteen barbers, one booking system — and the owner still cutting at all three.

The philosophy

What we run on

The consultation is the service

Every cut starts with a conversation, not a guess. Agreeing the plan takes two minutes and saves two weeks of hat-wearing.

Grow your own

Student, junior, barber, master — the Lounge trains its own bench. The apprentice cutting under supervision today is the master barber your kids will book.

The room matters

Wood, records, a coffee menu, a dog named Lady. People relax in rooms that feel human, and relaxed heads get better haircuts.

Local first

Guelph and Fergus aren't markets, they're home. Sponsor the local things, know the names, cut the town's hair for decades.

Where it goes next

More chairs, more barbers trained in-house, and a membership for the regulars. Same standard, always.

The best way to be part of it is the oldest way: find your barber, become a regular, and tell a friend whose hair needs help. (3 shops and counting.)

Meet the people →

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