FROM BASEMENT TO THE MAIN STREET
Welcome to Brazykuts Barbershop, an urban twists to the traditional barbershop. Brazykuts Barbershop was founded July 7 2022. Carlos Bonifaz and Laura Bonifaz are the co-owners of Brazykuts Barbershop. Both brother and sister created the barbershop to make a change not only in the Canadian Barber industry but as well for the community . Down below is the original story of how Brazykuts Barbershop was created.
I started cutting hair in my basement when I was 18. At first it started off as nothing more than a hobby. Cutting my friends and family for free i was subconsciously falling in love with the trade as i was still trying to figure out my life.
Once i graduated High school i had to make a decision on what i wanted to do with my life. Barbering seemed to be the only thing i truly loved so i decided to take a leap of faith and follow my passion. I worked at 3 barbershops before opening up Brazykuts Barbershop. the first barber shop i had to travel 2 hours each way, the other 2 barber shops were in my area. After working at the first 2 barber shops i found a problem. I never felt true community or love. It felt as if i was only being used for their needs and nothing more, so i decided the next time i would be in a barbershop it would be my own.
That is when i started to work in my basement. for about 8 months i hustled, building up my clientele and saving every penny i could. That is when my sister Laura saw the potential in what i was doing and truly gave me the fire to open up a barbershop. We found a location within our community (st.clair west) which we grew up in and it was the perfect fit. The barber shop was opened up July 7 2020 which was in the middle of the pandemic.
Opening during the pandemic was extremely difficult, we were put with many restrictions, not being able to do beards, having everyone wear masks, intake forms and being at capacity, we’re super vigilant about protecting out staff and customers so having these rules in place were so important to us but the prolonging affect during the pandemic did hurt the first couple months of our business. Couple months in and we got shut down. Not being able to operate for 8 months while still paying our expenses was very difficulty. My sister who is my business partner was in school at the time so not only did we have to worry about rent, our staff, bills but school on top of that.
Once i graduated High school i had to make a decision on what i wanted to do with my life. Barbering seemed to be the only thing i truly loved so i decided to take a leap of faith and follow my passion. I worked at 3 barbershops before opening up Brazykuts Barbershop. the first barber shop i had to travel 2 hours each way, the other 2 barber shops were in my area. After working at the first 2 barber shops i found a problem. I never felt true community or love. It felt as if i was only being used for their needs and nothing more, so i decided the next time i would be in a barbershop it would be my own.
That is when i started to work in my basement. for about 8 months i hustled, building up my clientele and saving every penny i could. That is when my sister Laura saw the potential in what i was doing and truly gave me the fire to open up a barbershop. We found a location within our community (st.clair west) which we grew up in and it was the perfect fit. The barber shop was opened up July 7 2020 which was in the middle of the pandemic.
Community meant everything to us and we new that once the restrictions were lifted the community would need something to bring life back into it. That is what the barbershop exactly did. After being closed for that amount of time we opened up and their was no looking back!
We stayed positive throughout the whole process and started finding other ways to grow the business. This is when the birth of our beard oil “prolific” came to life!
We created an all natural hair growth oil meant to groom and grow all hair needs. The brand “Prolific” was inspired by Nipsey Hustle which is one of Carlos’s favourite artists. the definition of Prolific stands for an abundance of growth and in my life that is a major key for us to stand by.
On September 3rd 2022 we opened up our second location “517 rogers rd”. Only about 10 minutes away from the first location our goal has always been to grow within the community.
We couldn’t thank our staff and customers enough for the amount of support and oppurtunities they have put in our lives. Our am for the barbershop is to serve the needs of others with an amazing experience and haircut and we strive day in and day out to do that.
To hear more about our story read our feature on BlogTo and This interview Carlos (Brazy) did on the MBH (Money Buys Happiness Podcast)
