Barbershops are typically loud, but few generate as many decibels as Chad’s. The 12-chair facility handles 150 to 200 customers on weekdays and up to 300 per day on weekends. Owner Chad Potts boasts that his 18-strong corps of barbers can cut anyone, no matter their age, race, or hair type. “You don’t get the same feeling here that you do at one of those froufrou places,” Potts says. “You can come here and be a man. But don’t get me wrong. If a lady or kid comes in and somebody cusses, I’m like, ‘Hey, we don’t have that here.’ But if it’s all guys, you can let loose a little bit.”
The Southport shop offers pretty much any man-centric style your heart desires, including bald fades, hard parts, and novelty designs, like team names and logos. Haircuts cost $15, hot towel shaves $10. Potts, who got into the trade by trimming fellow members of his high-school basketball team, sees lots of his clients on a regular basis, because super-short cuts demand lots of maintenance.
Chad’s offers a full line of styling products, all under the proprietary Chad’s BarberShop label: pomade, styling gel, talc, aftershave, beard conditioner—all the basics.
He hopes clients will see his shop—and haircutting—as something more than just a tedious grooming chore. “Here, everybody is accepted,” he says. “You can sit down here and just hang out and be treated like you’ve been coming here since day one. As long as you don’t say you’re a Patriots fan.” 5554 Madison Ave., 782-2500, chadsbarbershop.com
This article is part of Indianapolis Monthly’s May 2016 Shear Genius barbershops package. For more slick advice, a crop of local grooming products, and buzzworthy barbershops, click here.
