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Beardsgaard Needs Your Help | Will You Join Our Quest? {Video}

August 14, 2014 By //  by The Beardsgaards Leave a Comment

As our friends and fans know, we are in the midst of an epic Indiegogo fundraising campaign, which marks the last push to get the doors to Beardsgaard open. You can head over to see the campaign on site right here, but we have reproduced it here below. To all those who believe in this dream of ours, every bit helps, so make a contribution today!

Mom and pop barber nerds on a quest to fund an epic fortress of beards and old school barbering

Our Story

Hello! We are Natalie and Tyler Anderson. We are stupid in love with each other and with our craft. We are barbers, you see, and it is high time we carved out a shoppey realm of our own.

Beardsgaard High-007

We have long had a dream of building a business where customer service, product knowledge and attention to detail are of the highest priority, as those have always been our greatest skills in every job we have ever held.

What we have been missing, though, is a career where we can not only join forces (as good as we can be separately, we are far better together), but where we can pour all of those skills, obsessive pursuit of perfection and nerdtastic inclinations into a place all our own.

It wasn’t until Tyler followed Natalie into the world of barbering that we knew this business would be a barbershop, but once the name Beardsgaard was uttered, it was all over for us.

Beardsgaard_Logo_WoodBurn

We knew we had found our purpose.

The Shop

This town and even the shop itself are steeped in history.

20140626-Beardsgaard Barbers-Buildout-Whole Front of Shop

We are still not quite sure how old our building is, although we do know that it was a pharmacy in 1890, about 15 years after Mary Todd Lincoln’s sanitarium incarceration a few blocks away. It even still has that gorgeous pressed tin ceiling.

Many of the buildings around here are even older than that – the house we live in dates back to 1856. That’s pre-Civil War. There may be ghosts.

20140730-Beardsgaard Barbers-Buildout-New Lights & Ceiling

The front desk is a beautiful old piece from Kinder Hardware that was built in the 1880s. Our Koch and Koken barber chairs date back to the 1920s. The walls, while sparse still, will soon fill up with more antiques and nerd memorabilia.

20140630-Beardsgaard Barbers-Buildout-Koch Barber Chair-004

Ask any of the best barbershops in the world  what makes powerhouse shops like theirs so popular, and you will get many answers, but one thread that ties them all together are that the owners built a place of business that feels like home to them.

When their clients enter their doors, they know they are in a place that is truly loved by its inhabitants. We are building a business/second home for the rest of our lives, and before long, the whole community will feel at home here too.

So here we sit, having now completed far more buildout since we started filming clips for the video above and since most of these photos were taken. We have pretty much everything we need to open, and are nearly done with the buildout.

20140630-Beardsgaard Barbers-Buildout-Morgan Anderson on the New Barber Chairs-001

This young family has managed to scrape together nearly everything we need to open a this business (one where the equipment is NOT cheap) with no loans or outside funding.

Now that we are so close to the end, all that remains is plumbing and retail stock. We are almost there, and with a little bit of help from you, something very special will come into the world.

The Meaning to Life, the Universe and Everything

20140709-Batavia, IL-River-010-Tyler Anderson & Morgan Anderson

This is a barbershop we are talking about, one single barbershop in the world, in a place the residents of Chicago consider the ends of the earth, if they have even heard of Batavia at all. Our little barbershop is not going to change the world. Probably.

Down the line we plan to expand our team, selection, client and industry education initiatives, craft our own line of products, and absolutely build that Dalek towel steamer, but we will never become a big, multiple location corporate entity. And that’s okay, just the way we like it, in fact.

20130818-Beardsgaard Roberta Rae Photo Shoot-Cedarburg, WI-006-Tyler Anderson & Natalie Anderson Portrait

We just want to keep doing the impeccable work that we have been doing at our chairs for years, and continue to make our clients look and feel like the men they want to be.

So What Does This Mean For You?

This is the internet, a vast universe in the ether, full of people from all over this pale blue dot in space – so why would the vast majority of you stumbling across this campaign be interested in helping us make this happen with your hard-earned money?

504tardis_zps63527573

Let’s find out. Are you…

  • A gentleman living within driving distance of the western Chicago suburbs? Contributing would mean you will have the best damn barbershop you will find outside of a major metropolitan city at your disposal – and even in the big cities, shops this good are rare gems. Although we appreciate any contribution , the $30, $100, $500, $1,000 and $5,000 levels are of most value to this group, as you are essentially pre-purchasing our services.
  • A fellow barber or barbershop? Barbers know that we really don’t have any competition. There are far more heads out there that need barbering than there are shops available, especially good ones, and the stronger we make the industry as a whole, the better we all do. So say we all, and all that.
  • A person with a few extra bucks to spare for some do-gooding?  Helping a young family get a mom and pop business get off the ground earns some major karma, and you get cool perk stuff to boot. How can you lose? The answer is that you cannot. All win here.
  • (just throwing this one out there) One of the many brands that we are going to be ordering a ridiculous amount of stock from if this campaign goes as swimmingly as we hope?
  • A Time Lord madman in a box that has uncovered a mysterious treasure horde somewhere in time and space, and as you have no need for money, you would like to give it to us? Fantastic!

If any of those sound like you, or even if they don’t and you want to contribute anyway (you rebel, you!), read on to find out more about the cool perks we have on offer.

The Perkiest of Perks

This is the fun part. Huzzah, perks! Here is what you get in return for each contribution level. You can find more detail about each perk up on the right of the page.

Indiegogo Perks-01

 

Risks? Don’t Worry, We Have a Plan

There are a lot of risks in opening a business, but not so many in this one. And even still, we have a plan. So what are these “risks?” Glad you asked.

  • Are there other barbers around the area? Yes, but not many, and there are far more clients than even our combined forces could service.
  • Are there salons around? Yes, plenty, but our services include many barber specialties you cannot find at a salon, and they can’t match our quality for price ratio.
  • Will we be able to find enough clients? Hoo boy yes. Keep reading, you will so see why.
  • Will we be able to afford to run this place as a two-chair shop? Yes. Our overhead is very low, and between the two of us we can break even running at less than half capacity, which is easily achievable by month three at the latest. Once we fill up, we will start looking to expand our team.
  • Should we have waited until we saved up more money and been able to fund this single-handedly? Yes, but too many big pieces were falling into place on a much sooner time table, and who knows what might have happened in that extra time? The stars were aligning, and we know the right time is now. Nothing great ever happened without someone just deciding to jump.

Beardsgaard Low-013

We can do this, there isn’t the slightest shred of doubt in our minds. But by Odin’s beard, we just need to get the doors open first. That’s where this campaign comes in.

Contingency

So what happens if we don’t reach our goal? That’s one of the best parts about our campaign. The plumbing has to happen, no matter what, even if we have to max out our credit cards to do it (we do not want to do that, if at all possible, for obvious reasons).

The product is much more flexible. If we have to get started with a super lean product line and work our way up to a wider selection, we will, but we really want to be able to give our clients great service and great selection right out of the gate. We can scale our retail stock to whatever fundraising will allow.

Beardsgaard High-009

But this really is just the beginning, this isn’t even our dream product selection yet. Some require quite an authorization process and a substantial buy-in, so we will be looking toward those after we are well up and running. Additionally, we are looking toward creating our own product line in the next couple of years.

What it all boils down to is that we will be able to complete this project even if we do not reach our full goal, but if we were to be so lucky as to exceed our goals, the funds will still go to great use in making this business to coolest damn place you have ever seen and expanding selection even further.

THE PLAN

This is the part where we throw some numbers around, detail what we have already put into this, what we still need to open with gusto, and the dark side of perks.

Print

Every time we look around the shop, we are shocked that the place is looking as upscale as it is, for how much money we have put into it, about $21,000.

The funds we are looking to raise include plumbing and retail stock, which amount to $22,700, as well as $3,300 to cover perk fulfillment, for a total of $26,000. The actual value of those perks, however is far higher, at about $33,800.

If you like data as much as we like data, we’ve got your data right here.

Print

We are certainly not looking to the public to finance this entire venture. We have already invested a substantial sum of our own money, as well as already putting in all of the physical work on the shop. There is even a bit more that is earmarked to finish a few more projects around the shop.

Even so, in the timeline of opening this business, we are 90% of the way there. This is what we have already spent, rounded for neatness.

  • Furnishings (barber chairs, seating, stations, mirrors, display cabinets, desk, U-Haul to move it all, etc.): $7,000
  • Tools (shears, clippers, razors, other tools, Latherizers, hot towel steamer, etc.): $5,000
  • Printing (business cards, postcards, price tags, posters, T-shirts, signage, vinyl, awning, associated permits, etc.): $2,500
  • Lighting (pendant lights, wall lights, spotlights, retail lighting, bulbs, associated permits, etc.): $2,500
  • Supplies (barber and office supplies, towels, sanitation, guest services, etc.): $2,000
  • Buildout (paint, lumber, tools, etc.): $1,000
  • Legal (business setup, filing fees, etc.): $1,000
  • Other Expenses (all the little nitty-gritty stuff that likes to empty your wallet in such endeavors): $1,000

Print

Plumbing

The funds we are trying to raise are to go toward plumbing first and foremost, as we totally need to get that done to open. Plumbing is quoted at $7,500 between what we need to pay the plumber, buy the sinks and fixtures, and file permits.

  • Plumber (running new pipes, setting up venting, safety regulation compliance, etc.): $6,500
  • Fixtures (sinks and other fixtures, etc.): $800
  • Other Expenses (permits, etc.): $200

Retail Stock

Our secondary fundraising goal is to stock our shelves with all of the retail items our clients need to look and feel their best from the neck up, as well as backbar (product for use on clients at the chair).

This will take about $15,200 up front, and includes retail stock such as shampoo and conditioner, hair, shave, beard and face care tools and supplies. Many of these companies have products that fit into multiple categories, but we have only listed them once each.

  • Hair (Klorane, DS Laboratories, Paul Mitchell, Reuzel, Sachajuan shampoos, conditioners, hair product, treatment): $7,000
  • Shaving (D.R. Harris, Hudson Made, Prospector Co., Boker, Dovo, Edwin Jagger, Merkur, Feather, razors, blades, brushes, shave creams, shave soaps, shave oils, aftershaves, hand thrown shave bowls and mugs, etc.): $4,500
  • Beard (Beardbrand, Big Red, Kent, Captain Fawcett, The Bearded Bastard, beard oils, beard balms, mustache waxes, combs and brushes): $2,500
  • Other Expenses (Ernest Supplies, Gentleman’s Brand Co., PLANT face washes, scrubs, moisturizers.): $1,200

Print

Of course the perks we have set up cost money as well, and those are a bit of a wild card, as we cannot know how many of each will be claimed. We do know how much the fulfillment of each perk will cost us, so we are working off of averages for these calculations, with perk fulfillment accounting for about 14.5% of each dollar raised.

Of course the monetary cost of perks is one thing, and one that we are factoring into our fundraising goals. What we are not figuring in is the total value of these services, which on average far exceed the contribution cost at about 130% of each dollar raised.

What we are saying is, we work hard for the money.

The Awkward Part

Of course one would want to be sure they weren’t throwing money away when they make a contribution of this sort, but let us set your mind at ease and tell you why this business will flourish. This is the hard part for us, getting a little braggy, but if it must be, it must be, so here it is.

Clients 1

We are really good at this. Ridiculously good. Not only that, but working at shops where you can only book a spot the day of, we often have days where we are fully booked within two minutes of phones opening up in the morning. Even if some days it takes slightly longer, we are fully booked every day without fail.

Clients 2

Not all of the haircuts and beards that walk out of our shop are showstoppers. We create plenty of everyday, simple styles – most of our work is fairly simple, in fact. Many clients won’t notice upon leaving the shop that there is something different about this haircut. But over the next few days and weeks, you realize that when it comes to taming 100,000 strands into something that is effortlessly easy to wear, the details are EVERYTHING.

Beard Before After

Clients have (jokingly) threatened to leave us terrible Yelp reviews after trying for weeks or longer to get an appointment just so they can chase other clients away. But still they come, almost entirely through word of mouth and our social media efforts.

Clients 3

We are head-swimmingly busy (and supremely grateful for each and every person that trusts their style to us) with rabidly loyal clients who recommend us all over town, as well as to the people that are constantly complimenting their haircuts and beards when out and about.

Clients 4

We have clients that live all over the country (New York, to California, and everywhere in between) and the world (clients in Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Saudi Arabia and more) who time their visits to Chicago with when they need haircuts and beardwork. We work on people who can afford to go literally anywhere for a haircut, and then come to little ol’ affordable us.

Clients 5

We are even Santa’s barber. For real. His name is Bob, he is a real-bearded professional Santa (no mall stuff for Santa Bob) and he is rad. You wouldn’t believe the power having Santa’s number on speed dial holds when the little ones are misbehaving.

20121215-Tyler's Portfolio-The Barber Academy-Santa Edited copy

We know from experience that once a client sits in our chairs, if they live reasonably nearby or come to the area regularly, they always return. So while we are starting over far from where we have worked for years, we know it will not take long to be full to capacity, every single day.

People have already been popping in constantly while we have been working on the buildout, and one look at the place has them exclaiming that they are not going to get a haircut until we are open. Then between in-person local networking and social/web channels, the buzz is getting quite buzzy.

20140629-Beardsgaard Barbers-Buildout-Schorem Poster & Paint Chips

Other Ways You Can Help

We know we have the makings of something fantastic here.

While we appreciate every contribution of any amount, we completely understand if you are unable to do so. But that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t help!

If you like what we’re doing here and want to lend us a virtual leg up, please share this campaign on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, your blog, or wherever you hang about the interwebs.

You can even do it right down below here. So easy. Just click the button. You know you want to. It would feel so good. It would make a clickety sound and make you feel good for the rest of the day. Or contribute and get neat stuff in return, that totally works too.

Either way, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Natalie & Tyler's Engagement Starred-025

Filed Under: Blog, Channel Beardsgaard, Shop News Tagged With: Behind the Scenes, Present

About The Beardsgaards

The Beardsgaards are a pair of mom-and-pop barber nerds with a shared obsession with perfection. We built this old school barbershop to feel like home to everyone who enters beneath the Elvish script above our door. If we and the Gaardian army can give you a better handle on your grooming routine, all the better.

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greetings, nerds!

welcome home
We built this place for you, to bring you everything you ever dreamed you could find in your friendly neighborhood barbershop, and a stupid amount more. Beardsmith and Blademaiden, the mom and pop founders, invite you to explore the realm.

Our Little Slice of Valhalla

In historic downtown Batavia on Route 31 between 1st and Main

117 S Batavia Ave, Batavia, IL 60510

PHONE: ( 630 ) 454 - 4820

EMAIL: shop@beardsgaardbarbers.com

Appointment & Walk-Ins Both!

Parking

On the general 2020 theme, there is currently no parking out front due to construction, and no front shop entrance either! Enter the back parking lot by First Street and come on in the back door with the beard on it (like a restaurant, wait at the sign inside for the Shopkeep to greet you)

get at us on instagram

beardsgaardbarbers

Family owned & operated since 2014. There be nerds here. And dragons.
💈Classic Haircuts • Epic Beards • Razor Shaves💈
House brand @riverpeakapothecary

Beardsgaard Barbers
We were deeply saddened by the news of Christopher We were deeply saddened by the news of Christopher Tolkien passing a year ago, and still are to this day. Our love of his father and Lord of the Rings is ever present here at Beardsgaard. So tonight we, and hopefully the rest of you, will take a moment to remember one of the greatest authors of all time, his son, and the impact the Tolkien family has had on our lives. 
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien
While we appreciate all the self sufficient kids t While we appreciate all the self sufficient kids that come into the shop, we still need an adult with them to sign our liability waiver. We know it’s a bit of a pain but it’s really to appease Phydeoux the shop dragon. He has a hunger for children and waivers, and we’d rather feed him waivers.
You don’t have to wear it after your cut, but do You don’t have to wear it after your cut, but don’t forget your hat. It’s cold outside.
The product goblin (and the rest of us) think @soa The product goblin (and the rest of us) think @soapdistillery body oils smell good enough to drink. We promise the oils will make you feel much better if you put them on your outside instead of your inside though.
Well hello to those with wild beards who heard whi Well hello to those with wild beards who heard whispers of moving out of Tier 3 Mitigation! Please pause, we're not there yet. 

This does not apply to the entire state of Illinois, only certain regions. As of now, we are still in Tier 3. We will announce when we have moved to Tier 2 on all of our social media channels as well as our email list, so sit tight until then!

Because knowledge is power, you also can go to http://dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=8 at any time and look at Region 8, which contains Kane County. As of this posting, we are not meeting the metric on hospital bed availability. 

We promise, we want to get everything under your mask looking and feeling great, but we cannot do that until it's safe. Thank you for understanding, and please keep an eye out here, on Instagram or sign up for our email list at the bottom of www.beardsgaardbarbers.com to get updates.
And you? Do you like the barber shop? We like you. And you? Do you like the barber shop? We like you.
We may specialize in short, traditionally masculin We may specialize in short, traditionally masculine haircuts, but Beardsgaard has always been a place for everyone; girls, guys, gays, theys - all identities and orientations find acceptance and a barbershop home here. If, however, you are looking for the luscious salon locks that are far less in our barberly skill set, we are the lucky next door neighbors of the incredible @coasthairsalon
Between the two of us, we have heads of every sort covered in spectacular hair, and positive vibes.
While we would love to see more than half of your While we would love to see more than half of your faces, until Illinois is out of Tier 3 we are just not allowed to do any face services. That means all beard trims and face shaves are not a thing for the foreseeable future. We know that’s a bummer for most of you but think of how epic and wizardry your beards will be once we can do trims!
For beard updates we will be posting across social media and sending an email out to those of you that are on the email list as soon as we know anything. Hang tight Gaardians, your face gardens will be pruned again some day.
When this year started, we eternal optimists could When this year started, we eternal optimists couldn’t have imagined what dragons were coming. With the support of this amazing community, this little barbershop made it through lockdown, occupancy restrictions, six flipping months of construction including losing our whole front entrance for months, are still in the middle of not being able to perform our signature services, but we’re all starting to see light on the other side. We don’t know what this next year will hold, but we believe this shop and this community will keep on adapting and end up stronger for it. We just hope, so hard, that the dogs will be able to return in 2021. In the meantime, we have the dragon. And all of you.
Over the years here, no one has held quite as many Over the years here, no one has held quite as many positions at Beardsgaard as Joey. As (at the time girlfriend, now wife) Amanda worked here, Joey was keen to fill in on desk when a shopkeep got sick, and he didn’t even work here yet. Nor did he yet when he let us tie him to a tree during the making of a dumb movie. 

Eventually, he came to be a Shopkeep at Beardsgaard before, like Tyler, following his wife into the blade game and going to barber school, turning out to be really good at it. He progressed from intern to apprentice to a knighting to staff barber of Beardsgaard to beard model for our sibling shop’s most popular product, Deepwell. 

And now, as if the fondest wish for any Gaardian, business ownership, taking over for Amanda as the head chair of Fox & Stone Barbers in St Charles while she is off wrangling puppies for a living in the vet world. 

We wish him endless luck and happiness in his next steps, but we won’t miss him too much. As the dad of our dearly departed Mia, and the wiggly love sausage Mabel, he has agreed that Mabel should still work at Beardsgaard once we can have shop dogs again because she is so good at her job and misses all of you. So we’ll see him then! Huzzah!

Today is his last day, be sure to give him your love/hardcore trolling, whatever your relationship with him is. As you know, he’s a barber who can do both.
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Our Little Slice of Valhalla

In historic downtown Batavia on Route 31 between 1st and Main

117 S Batavia Ave, Batavia, IL 60510

PHONE: ( 630 ) 454 - 4820

EMAIL: shop@beardsgaardbarbers.com

Appointment & Walk-Ins Both!

Parking

On the general 2020 theme, there is currently no parking out front due to construction, and no front shop entrance either! Enter the back parking lot by First Street and come on in the back door with the beard on it (like a restaurant, wait at the sign inside for the Shopkeep to greet you)

Current Hours

Closed for Shop Lunch 2-3 pm weekdays, 1-2 pm Saturdays

• Monday - Friday 9 / 8 • Saturday 9 / 5

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(Closed Sundays & Mondays. Call or book online )
For the safety of our staff and clients, we must refuse service to anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms.
Actually there’s a whole list of questions we’re gonna ask you at the door, brace yourself.
Shop closes for lunch weekdays 2-3 PM and Saturdays 1-2 PM
Shop our entire shop online, for shipping worldwide or curbside pickup! {CLICKY HERE}
While you’re here, peruse our sibling shop right next door or in the Webs of Inter, River Peak Apothecary!