By the end of November, Susie McCarthy will move the Star Barber Shop and Salon to her renovated garage from its location on Monte Vista Boulevard. The shop has been there for more than 50 years, but she said she is moving because her landlord asked her to pay more for rent.
“The barber shop has been in this particular spot since 1958,” McCarthy said. In 1996, she became the shop’s fourth owner. McCarthy bought the shop and added “salon” to its name.
“I always wanted to do hair from when I was quite young,” McCarthy said. “I started cutting hair when I was 13. I cut my mom’s hair, and I cut all my friends’ hair in high school.”
Before McCarthy went to college, she asked her father if she could go to beauty school. But he told her “Absolutely not.”
After quitting her accounting job in 1989, McCarthy went to Dewolff’s College in Albuquerque for cosmetology. Now, her daughter is studying the
same trade at CNM.
