Times change. People change. Towns change. Things change. Harvey’s Barber Shop has been a fixture on downtown Beaufort’s Bay Street for 86 years, but that’s about to change.
The shop is moving across the bridge to Lady’s Island and will open in the Grayco Shopping Center on June 1st.
It was 1936 when Furman Harvey opened the first Harvey’s Barber Shop on Bay Street and it was the only Beaufort barber shop in downtown. Then, in 1954 he built the current shop at 919 Bay Street. The current business is operated by sons, Ray and Johnny Harvey, who have worked there since sometime in the 1960s.
Why the move? “Moving out of downtown will give our customers more of an opportunity to stop in when they need to,” said Ray Harvey. “And, it’s time.”
“We both live on Lady’s Island and have been making the daily drive into downtown for how long,” he added.
“50 years.”
An authentic experience, a visit to Harvey’s is like visiting friends; always asking how family members are doing and making sure to share comments and laughs about the gossip of the day. Harvey’s has been Bay Street’s longest continuously operated business for a long time now and has given haircuts to several generations of Beaufort locals since before World War II.
“We’ve given someone’s son their first haircut as a child, and that son still gets his haircut here now, in his 50s,” Ray said proudly. “We’ve been around a long time.”
The popular Beaufort barber shop will be opening in its new spot right behind Regions Bank and Wells Fargo at the Grayco Shopping Center on Lady’s Island on June 1st, when Ray and Johnny no longer have to cross the bridge on the way to work in the morning.
The downtown barber shop is still open, and will remain open up until around the date the new shop opens.
