Chop Shop barber has been a Sugar House tradition for 47 years

SUGAR HOUSE — Mike Zundel sits in the barber chair and tries to remember the first time LeRoy Pulos cut his hair. "I grew up, up the street," he says. He's 37; he figures he's been coming to the Chop Shop for 35 years.

"Your dad used to come down," Pulos reminds him. "Yeah," Zundel agrees, recalling when he came in with his dad, recalling the Coke machine Pulos used to have in the back of the shop.

When he was a boy, he never liked getting a haircut, Zundel confesses now. He didn't like to hold still. He did love that Coke machine, though. The orange-ades.

He and Pulos laugh as they remember the size of the soft-drink bottles — 7 ounces. And the price — a dime.

For 47 years, Pulos has been a barber at this location, shaving and cutting in a two-chair shop on a quiet neighborhood street in Sugar House. When he started out, he had a business partner, Tom Wilcox. Together, they came up with the name, "Chop Shop." Young Sign Company built the neon sign from a design Wilcox and Pulos chose together.

"He's looking up at the grass now," says Pulos of Wilcox. "Long time." Over the decades, Pulos let the other chair to other barbers. But now, and for the past couple of years, he has been alone.

These days, the Chop Shop hours are 8:15 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. On Thursdays Pulos plays golf. Of course, he notes, a lot of people his age golf every day. But he's kept on barbering.

He says that when he wakes up in the morning, he likes having someplace he has to be. Also, he says, his customers are the nicest people in the world.

Take Ron Coleby, for example. Coleby is a pleasant man with a British accent, and he and Pulos have a 36-year history. Today, when Coleby walks into the Chop Shop, his hair doesn't look all that long. Still, he says it's been five weeks since his hair was cut last, adding, "I'm tripping over it."

It takes Pulos 10 minutes, total, to cut Coleby's hair. "I know just how he wants it," Pulos says as he snips. "He wants it long and black and curly." Of course Coleby's hair is white and straight, and by the time Pulos is done, it's pretty short as well.

When he's finished cutting, Pulos flips the barber chair around and Coleby nods at his reflection in the mirror, and then Pulos fits a vibrator over his fingers and gives Coleby a neck massage. "Most of my customers come in for the massage. I throw in a haircut for free."