Central Oak Barber Co. Left: Barber, Nelson Carmona Right: Jaison Perry, owner and Barber. Photos by Aziz Halabi
Central Oak Barber Co.: Good Times, Great People, and Quality Cuts By Suzanne Driscoll Jaison Parry was working in sales in 2008 when the U.S. economy collapsed. He realized he needed something to fall back on and thought, “Barbering has been around for hundreds of years, so why not try that?”
He attended barber school for a year and a half part-time, and upon completion of the required 1,200 hours, he passed the state board test. Parry was fortunate to find work in Ocala with two older barbers, each of whom had been cutting hair for 40 years. “It was great to learn all the old-school techniques and combine them with the modern trends I had learned,” he recalls.
Running Your Own Shops After six years in Ocala, Parry had the urge to open his own shop. Every night he would peruse listings for turnkey barber shops located in a neighborhood, and was fortunate to find a shop for sale on 49th Street N. He opened the first Central Oak Barber Co. in 2016. “I had to rebuild the business from the ground up, and that took about a year and a half,” Parry says. “I would work in Ocala one day a week to make what I needed to get by.” Today there are two shops: one in the Central Oak neighborhood and the other in downtown St. Pete on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. “We offer all types of cuts and styles, as well as head shaves and trimming and precision detailing of facial hair,” Parry says. “A typical
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GREENBENCHMONTHLY.COM / FEBRUARY 2022
