Gentleman's Choice Barber Shop in Dresher

People tend to have a special relationship with the person who cuts their hair. Style and results are important, but if there's a lack of communication—of conversation or personality—then it's likely the customer may be sitting down somewhere else the next time they need a little taken off the top.

Anatoly Stavropolsky, owner of in the Dreshertown Plaza and known by his customers as “Toly,” understands this special relationship. He is a self-described old-fashioned barber, one who has seen the passing of the glory days of shops catering to men in favor of modern salons, and he takes great pride in still carrying the banner.

At the end of each cut, Toly offers a free, optional straight-edge shave for the back of the neck, a tradition that has gone the way of the milk delivery man.

“In today's world, we have only three barber schools in the state of Pennsylvania: one in North Philly, another in Harrisburg, and another in Pittsburgh,” explains Toly, in a clear Eastern European accent. “So the people who want to learn barbering, they have to go to a hair stylist school and spend unnecessary money and time ... so it is a dying trade, and it's really sad it's tough to find a good barber.”

Toly fights this trend with over three decades of experience, and clearly remembers Sept. 1, 1976, as the day he became a barber in his home city of Kiev, Ukraine. He spent the first 12 years of his career there until early 1988, when he made the decision to flee the Soviet Union in hope for a better life in America.

“[I wanted to] escape the prosecution against Jews, escape from (the) Soviet Union, and I didn't want to live in a communist society,” said Toly.

Toly, along with his wife and 4-year-old daughter (now an attorney and American University grad) ended up in Philadelphia, where they knew a distant relative who sponsored their arrival.

However, the long road to owning his own shop was not an easy one.

“For the first year, I did whatever was necessary to support my family, then I passed the barber test and started my career here in the United States,” Toly recalled.

He spent a year working for another barber before he opened his first shop in Willow Grove in the summer of 1989. Toly operated that location for roughly five years before selling it and attempting to try something different.

“I tried to go somewhere else—tried to get out of business—but a year later, I realized that being a barber is my life,” Toly said.

So he got back to it by working at a shop in King of Prussia and saving money, eventually opening his first Gentleman's Choice shop in Paoli, a location that still exists and prospers today.

A few years later, Toly was approached by Dreshertown Plaza's ownership with the idea to open a second location in that center. The rest was history, and in August of 2008, Gentleman's Choice Barber Shop had its first day of business in Dresher.

As coincidence would have it, the shop's first customer, Max Levine, happened to be in for a haircut on the day of my interview with Toly. His dollar bill from that first transaction still hangs on the shop's wall, and Levine still swears by the service.

“I wanted to go to a barber. I wanted to go to a traditional haircutting place,” said Levine. “So sure enough, one day I'm walking (through the parking lot) here, and I see a barber shop, and I came in.”

He's been back ever since, and Toly points toward his relationship with Levine as the standard in his shop.

“It's an old-fashioned barber experience; not overpriced, nice conversation, great environment,” Toly said. “It might take two, three times before I started memorizing (names of customers), but the haircut is like a handwriting.”