028 Barber Shop currently has four locations across the Seattle area (Image: 028 Barber Shop)
A growing Seattle-area chain of barber shops is coming to Capitol Hill just as the neighborhood-born giant Rudy’s is stumbling.
A new 028 Barber Shop is in the works replacing a former workout studio on 12th Ave inside the Trace Lofts building, CHS has learned.
The growth of the small chain comes as the city’s leading provider of barber services and E Pine-born Rudy’s has stumbled under private equity-backed SoHi Brands. In Oregon and Washington, the private equity firm entrenched itself with founders behind some of the region’s most popular but financially challenged small restaurants and companies including Rudy’s.
CHS reported here in 2020 on the deal returned its Capitol Hill founders to the fold and rescued the Rudy’s chain out of bankruptcy.
What has happened next including financial issues and reports of unpaid bills is the stuff of private equity horror stories and has left questions around the Rudy’s deal and others.
So far in Seattle and on Capitol Hill, the Rudy’s locations have remained open and CHS has not found any public record of lease issues. Meanwhile, the Capitol Hill 15th Ave E location is moving up the street to a new barber shop inside the newly completed Capitol Hilltop mixed-use development.
On 12th Ave, the new barber shop is taking shape in the former Barre3 studio that more than a decade ago was part of the building’s early tenants neighboring Tavern Law. Other neighbors include the Rex Seattle Pet Grooming and Spa, Mighty-O Donuts, and Capitol Hill’s Katsu Burger.
(Image: 028 Barber Shop)
028’s arrival on Capitol Hill is part of continued growth for the six-year-old company and owner Dong Shin. It will be the second 028 in Seattle joining shops in Woodinville, Federal Way, and Redmond with traditional barber services focused on walk-in customers.
It will also bring new competition for Rudy’s which operates a barber shop a block away at 12th and Pike, one of three Rudy’s locations on Capitol Hill.
028 Barber Shop will be located at 1404 12th Ave. Learn more at 028barbershop.com.
HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
dumb story
Just FYI, last week the stylists at the Bellevue Rudy’s location came to work to locked doors and an eviction notice. There are two locations that I personally know of that have had rent troubles, one of them has been operating in their space for over 20+ years.
Rudy’s has had delays on sending out paychecks, used to reliably be paid on a Friday morning, now it sometimes doesn’t hit until Friday afternoon, so they have the whole weekend to recoup some of the money before the paychecks leave their account on Monday morning. They didn’t tell us, so it would be random and people had auto drafts on their accounts for that Friday, that would then bounce over the weekend (because lots of us live paycheck to paycheck), causing fees that would have been avoided if they had actually told us about this in the first place.
People are dispirited and basically expecting to wake up and have the doors to their shop perm closed because of lack of rent or bankruptcy with no warning. There are lawsuits pending over how Sortis/SoHi had lied to Rudy’s investors and lots of mismanagement of dollars and lack to transparency. It’s kinda ugly.
I’m really shocked that no one in Washington or Seattle is covering this, as if Rudy’s closes, that’s hundreds of people out of work, and so many people will need to find new stylists and barbers – it’ll make a big mess. Oregon has covered a lot of this though, so good on Oregon Live and OPB for keeping us employees out of the dark.
Really sorry this is happening to you, Rudy’s employees! What a mess. That’s hundreds of employees and many thousands of clients (including me) potentially affected. Hopefully CHS blog will keep the updates coming, though hopefully it will not get worse!