‘An institution in our neighborhood’s history’: Alpine Barbers, North Boulder staple since 1958, to close after losing lease

There aren’t many old-time barbershops left like Alpine Barbers , located at 1215 Alpine Ave. in North Boulder’s Ideal shopping center. When it closes on Oct. 25 after losing its lease, Boulder will have one fewer place where someone can just walk in without an appointment and walk out with a simple, clean, traditional cut.

From the old-fashioned barber pole out front to the fading floor tiles inside that carry the same barber pole motif, Alpine Barbers hasn’t really changed anything, except its name a few times as ownership evolved, since it first opened in 1958 as Ruble’s Barber Shop.

Throughout the decades, it remained the familiar place where generations of North Boulder boys got their first haircuts, and where their older brothers, fathers and even grandfathers counted on for a good, no-fuss cut. It exudes a basic no-frills, just-get-the-job-done atmosphere.

“Our shop is old-fashioned, funky, friendly, and gives consistent, quality haircuts. That’s what guys like,” said current owner Richard Kaiser. “And that’s what’s being lost.”

Boulder native Charlie DeVischer took over the shop, then Ruble’s, in the early 1990s and changed the shop’s name first to Charlie’s Barber Shop and later to Alpine Barbers. In 2002, he brought in Kaiser as co-owner.

DeVischer sold Kaiser full ownership in 2019, just months before Covid struck — a business catastrophe that Kaiser admits the shop is still combating. (DeVischer died Aug. 4 this year at age 79.)

Kaiser learned that he lost his lease this past July after the shopping center management signed it over to the new Alive and Well integrated health and wellness store next door. Alive and Well replaced the bankrupt Medly Pharmacy last spring, which had previously bought the longtime Pharmaca store there.

Michael Swail, CEO of Austin-based Alive and Well, said the 3,500-square-foot Pharmaca/Medly space was smaller than his other stores in Austin and Dallas, which have the room to offer personalized wellness services beyond pharmacy and retail products. Acquiring more space was critical to his business plan.

Steve LeBlang, part owner of the Ideal center’s owner, North Broadway Corp., said Swail was “adamant about having more space, so in order to secure the lease for the larger space, I had to let them have” the Alpine Barbers space. A 10-year lease was signed in April.

By adding the barbershop’s approximately 700 square feet, Swail will have room for the additional health treatments that he believes will make Alive and Well stand out in Boulder’s high-end wellness market.

LeBlang agreed, remarking that personal wellness services are “some of the fastest growing businesses in the country right now. There is a huge market for it. It’s kind of a destination business, so it will bring new people to the shopping center.”

Alive and Well plans to use the Alpine Barbers space for a sauna, cold plunge, red light therapy, vibroacoustic frequency therapy, ozone insufflation and nutraceutical IV therapy, Swail said. The store hopes to start providing the new services next summer.

“The Boulder community itself is a special place, where we think people will appreciate our approach to holistic health care,” Swail said. He believes some of Alive and Well’s services will be new for Boulder.

For his part, Kaiser has mixed feelings. He feels “blindsided” and “resentful” that he didn’t learn of management’s plans until it was time to renew his lease in mid-summer, several months after the change was made.

Management is “the big fish,” he said. “It’s our people that will be the most affected, and there are hundreds of men in the community who are losing their barber.”

One of them is local architect Adrian Sopher, who’s been a customer for more than 30 years. “You go to the barber in your neighborhood. That’s how it works. It’s been the same place, forever, an institution in our neighborhood’s history. It will be one more of those things that just aren’t anymore.”

Kaiser is 80 but still stands ramrod straight and vigorous, sporting an immaculately trimmed beard and handlebar mustache. He would have preferred another lease or to sell Alpine Barbers to someone else who would carry on the tradition.

As the days pass, however, he is becoming more philosophical. He sees the benefit to the Ideal Center overall in having high-end wellness services. And he notes that the barbering business is changing, making it difficult to find and keep traditional barbers. His two associate barbers, Bob Beckman and Jenny Chi, are looking for other jobs.

”This could have been handled more gracefully, but I know it will bring in new customers,” Kaiser said. “It will be good for the Ideal Center overall. I’m a little resentful, but that’s not dominant, and I wish them well.”

Kaiser acknowledged that LeBlang took him to other areas to find a new business location, and even offered to help pay for the move, but he didn’t feel other spots were right for the business, or were too far away for regular customers to follow.

So having given up that idea, retirement is beginning to sound more appealing, even if he feels it is “forced retirement.” He lives below Gold Hill, where he’s planning time with grandkids, hiking and caring for the finches in his home aviary.

Mathias Thurmer, who’s been a customer for about 20 years, is another who will miss the shop. For him, he said, Alpine Barbers expresses the “essence” of what a barbershop should be. “I used to go the first Tuesday of every month — and I will go one more time.”

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