‘Mobile Cuts Boston’ Set to Roll Out Men’s Barbershop on Wheels

They're starting in Quincy and Braintree for now, but have plans to park their traveling grooming service in the city in 2015.

Image courtesy of Mobile Cuts Boston

Image courtesy of Mobile Cuts Boston

More than two years ago, Montrez Williams was sitting in a barbershop in Boston, flipping through a magazine, when he spotted a feature story about the success of a mobile men’s grooming company in San Diego, California.

Soon after, he had an idea: in the age of on-demand services, why not bring a similar commodity to Massachusetts?

On January 15, he will.

“We are rolling out,” said Williams, a marketing professional and cofounder of Mobile Cuts Boston. “It’s there, it’s ready. I feel real good about it, and I feel good about where we’re at.”

While the concept isn’t necessarily a new one—Williams came up with the idea after researching how operations work in other states—bringing a permanent mobile grooming shop to the streets of the Boston area is something that hasn’t been done before.

Williams has spent the last two years developing the company with his business partners to make sure that everything’s perfect before setting a new standard for how men get haircuts. “We are people who like stuff on-demand, we don’t like waiting for anything anymore,” he said.

By teaming up with Christopher Roberts, a master barber who teaches courses about men’s grooming in Quincy, and cofounder Santiago Rosa, Williams has been able to tweak the idea for the mobile shop to meet their unique specifications.

“It was always just about how we could be creative, and how to be first, and how we could really show our creativity and use our minds to go to the next level,” he said. “I thrive off of being creative and letting my mind go to certain places and expanding.”

Come launch time, Mobile Cuts Boston will unveil their shop on four wheels, complete with televisions, WiFi, two seats for customers to sit in and get custom cuts, a mobile app for making appointments, and amenities like coffee, tea, and refreshments. They will be parked in office parks and near business complexes to start, and be available for service between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. during the weekdays.

“It’s almost like a mobile man cave,” said Williams. “It’s a place where customers can come and can go and relax their mind, and get groomed really good. We wanted that type of entity.”

Williams said the company, which has business headquarters in Boston, but will begin offering services on the vehicle in Braintree and Quincy before expanding to the city in the New Year, was originally going to be a brick-and-mortar shop.

After several other men’s barbershops started to flourish and crop up statewide, he knew Mobile Cuts Boston needed an original approach, and one that catered to the busy and upwardly mobile lifestyles of young professionals.

“I said, ‘if we do the same thing as everyone else, what will make us different?’ Then I thought back to that magazine I was reading, and when you look at how the mobile industry has taken off— look at these food trucks. I wouldn’t have eaten a free piece of candy off those a couple years ago—it’s so hot now,” said Williams.

But he said it was important that Mobile Cuts Boston not “just do it to do it.”

“We wanted to understand how we could bring the concept here, and roll it out successfully, not just doing it because it sounds like a cool idea,” he said.

With Roberts and a second barber on board, and his marketing skills on hand, Williams believes they’ve figured out the best way to cut into the industry. “When you walk into the mobile shop, you feel like, ‘this is the place I want to be. I want to relax here,’” said Williams. “That’s how we built this thing to feel.”