Outside an Akron barbershop, a reserved parking sign marks the space saved for Johnny Coatter.
For decades, Coatter owned and operated J.R. Coatter’s Hairstyling, serving hundreds of men and boys with haircuts, shaves and beard trims. Then his body told him it was time to step away from the chair.
He had come to terms with retirement — but not without leaving his longtime clients with someone to care for them.
Then he met Kyle Alexander through a friendship with Alexander’s uncle. Alexander spent Saturdays earlier this year with Coatter, watching how he worked, speaking with customers and building trust.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better person,” Coatter, 68, said. “I’ve come to love him like a son.”
On Aug. 3, Alexander officially took over the shop and renamed it Good Hands Barbershop. The business transition was sealed with a handshake, just as their relationship had begun — the moment immortalized in a photo that now hangs on a barbershop wall at 33 S. Frank Blvd., located in Akron’s Wallhaven neighborhood.
“As hairstylists or barbers,” Alexander, 34, said, “we use our hands for good.”
Still, passing on the business was difficult for Coatter’s wife, Jamie, who also works in the shop.
“I didn’t want to lose that part of us,” she said.
‘This shop was our legacy’
Coatter’s father encouraged him to try barbering after noticing his creative side.
“I’m artsy,” said Coatter, whose sister, Vikki Knapp, also entered the beauty profession.
In 1982, Coatter opened his business.
Those early years were a struggle. On some days, he’d only have five or six haircuts a day.
He began working six days a week.
“I was young,” he remembered, “so I could take that type of abuse.”
As the business grew, so did his connections with people who came through the door. He celebrated their milestones, listened when they needed someone to talk to, and for years watched many of them return. He often felt more like a therapist than a barber.
The shop became a family affair when his wife, Jamie, joined him. She started with cutting hair for friends and family before attending school to become a hairdresser.
“This shop was our legacy that we built together as a team,” Jamie said.
She became proficient in coloring men’s and women’s hair, leaving the barbering to her husband, never that far away.
Until now.
Chris, Todd and Jan are among those who once sat in Johnny Coatter’s chair — and now sit in Alexander’s.
Behind the camera to behind the chair
Alexander took a different route to the same chair.
He spent nearly 10 years as a photographer, shooting men’s and women’s fashion for an e-commerce company. He enjoyed the work, but his passion began to fade.
Then he thought about his sister, Kara Kolesar, who had done friends’ hair when Alexander was young. He thought of the industry as another creative outlet.
So one day, he told his barber he planned to quit his job and attend barber school.
After graduation, Alexander spent five years working at a shop in Cleveland, where he said he learned the craft — from fades and blends to building relationships with customers.
He enjoyed the work, built a following and eventually brought what he learned back to Akron.
Up next for this Akron barbershop
Coatter may have left the barbershop, but Jamie has not. She continues working there.
“For me, it was about a new learning curve,” Jamie said, “learning to be there without my husband there working alongside me.”
Leaving the shop does not mean Coatter is stepping away from his purpose. He now coaches wrestling at Garfield Community Learning Center, where he envisions another opportunity to engage with young people.
“This was a ministry,” Coatter said of his former barbershop.
“Now my new ministry is going to be working with these young people and just trying to help create not only better athletes, but better human beings.”
