Liberty Barber Shop

Hey everybody — John here. I own Liberty Barbershop in Maitland and have been over here about two years now. Joined the page because I wanted to connect more with the local community outside of just work.

My shop is geared more toward adults who appreciate professionalism, reliability, and not having their time wasted. Appointment-based, organized, low-drama environment, and no trying to rush people in and out all day.

Outside the shop I’m into fitness, jiu-jitsu, health, and local business stuff, so I’m always interested in good recommendations and meeting solid people around the area. Appreciate being here.

2025…

2025 marked my first full year after intentionally downsizing my business.

After 18 years on Primrose Drive, as a founding member of the Milk District, I moved into an environment that clearly needed a high-end men’s grooming experience, paired with real business, training, and nutrition guidance. I found that home in the heart of downtown Maitland, across the street from the iconic Kappy’s Sub Shop.

Many longtime clients followed me through the move, and just as many new ones found me here: people who never could’ve made it to my old location. That balance made one thing very clear.

The future wasn’t service-based appointments.
It was time-based service.

There’s always a rough idea of what can be done in a given window, but it’s never really been about the cut. It’s about the experience, the attention, and not being rushed through something that matters.

As I step into 2026 as a fully time-based, high-end service provider, I’m proud to continue serving Central Florida while keeping the promise I made 24 years ago:

Show up prepared.
Be reliable.
Be punctual.
Do my best: every single time.

2024: A New Chapter

When I opened Liberty Barbershop back in 2008, I had the bright idea to write my own lease. I set it up as one year with three five-year renewals, which brought me to 2024.

This past year, I tried to work out a new lease, but it just didn’t pan out. So I made the decision to downsize and move closer to home in Seminole County— Maitland.

I couldn’t have made the move happen without the help of Angie, Dave, Kellie, Stephanie, Tito, Michael, Scott, Phillip, Renee, and Jeremiah. Doing your own thing is never easy, but having good people who show up and support you in every way—that’s how you know who the real ones are.

49 N Primrose Drive, 2008–2024.

Thanks for all the memories. Maitland has been great to me and my clients, and I’m proud to be part of this community!

2021
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For me, 2021 was all about the clients and the neighborhood. It didn’t even take six months into 2021 for all three barbers to be slammed busy all the time after recovering from the imposing government shutdown of “non-essential” workers. So, I did what any business owner that truly cares for their clients, their families, and their neighborhood would do: I rented a Kelly’s Ice Cream Truck for the day and we had a fu***ng ice cream party about it.
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When you are in the service industry, the key word is to serve the people that choose to serve you. So you best believe I served up a couple thousand bucks of ice cream for my people. Thank you for allowing this place to exist. There is no us without YOU.
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All photos by Micah Cox.

2020
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2020 brought some of the hardest challenges Liberty Barbershop faced, as a “non-essential” classification forced the newly trained team of John Duvoisin, Jalal Tawasha, and Victoria Sargeant to be shut down for two and a half months, and then only allowed by the health department to be at 50% capacity for six months once we were allowed to reopen.
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Leaders eat last, so John went down to two days a week so his staff could take all clients coming in to get their bank accounts replenished first, sold his car and got a cheaper car, and took out a couple loans to stay afloat.
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When you own a business, there is no rent, utility, tax, licensing, or insurance forgiveness, so when you get your lifeline cut off for 80 days and then forced to not generate more than 50% of what you had always done for six months after that, the best you can do is make sure your team gets paid as much as possible while treading water in a hurricane to try to stay afloat.
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With the utmost gratitude and respect for the support of the community around Liberty Barbershop, we were able to swim and keep our heads above water in a sea where so many others sank. We survived the storm, with thanks entirely to those of you that sat with us in that tumultuous year, and will never forget it.
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All photos by Micah Cox.

2019
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After reaching and exceeding all dreams, goals, and aspirations of what Liberty Barbershop, a 250 square foot rectangle, could be in its first ten years, it was time for a change. To signify this change, we did a complete remodel to make the place look exactly like what it had become: a high end industry standard award winning establishment that was too good and too busy for you to just be able to walk in anymore.
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To further change the structure and vibe of the place, John decided not to have hired guns anymore, and instead have any new staff he brought on be trained as a cohesive team, to make it even easier to help barbers develop the soft skills to give a Liberty quality service with everything he learned that worked and also didn’t work over the last decade.
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All photos by Micah Cox.

2018
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Every year after Liberty Barbershop opened back in 2008, there was always talk of having a party about it. Being so slammed with business growth and massive changes to try to keep up, John promised he would do a Ten Year Ten Thousand Dollar Anniversary Party.
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Not wanting to appear to be a bullsh*tter, on January 1, 2018, John started planning the party and keeping his word. It ended up being held at Soundbar downtown, familiar stomping grounds for tons of the barbershop’s clientele. Catering was done by Pizza Bruno, as John and Bruno had been friends since John was in barber school. The punk band Teen Agers played, with John sitting in on drums as their drummer at the time, and the super successful DJ Grape La Flame did a set as well. Dessert was brought in by Valhalla Bakery, and to round out the $10k, John had open bar covered for a few hours.
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In small business, making it two years is huge. A decade, with no backers, investors, or help from anyone other than the people coming through the doors, is massive, and John and the crew of Liberty Barbershop made sure to let everyone know how much they were appreciated with this wild ass night.
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All photos by Micah Cox.

2017
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Businesses start. They grow, expand. Thrive, sustain. Sometimes they can stand the test of time. Sometimes they can bust at the seams. 2017 represented the solidification of what would end up being the height and apex of everything I had ever tried to accomplish, if for no other reason than to see if I could.
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I had my last apprentice with Tito Santiago, who has undoubtedly gone one to making his own dreams of his ideal barbershop come true with his venture in his shop Eleanor’s, and with him, Sharon Loe, Colin Davey, and Alex Kuechenmeister, I had an award winning shop, with a solid team of high end specialists, with all varying degrees of strengths sharing a tiny three chair shop while busting out 200 hours of 100% booked schedules per week.
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When we weren’t winning every possible award and accomplishment we could, we were being flirted with by major men’s product lines, doing collaborations and in negotiations as possible exclusive educators for some of them, I spent what little free time I had getting approved for a business mortgage and was searching for a larger property to buy so we could all spread out and get some breathing room.
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I put in offers on three different awesome properties, paid all the thousands of dollars in paperwork and prep desperately trying to get a larger space that I could actually own and stop being beholden to a largely absentee landlord, and I got outbid by upwards of $100,000 above asking price each time by different cash buyers. Trying to buy commercial real estate is not fair and balanced like when you’re under contract for a home. I learned this the hard way.
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So, like all things, the walls started closing in on us, and the monthly team and family dinners and outings weren’t as fun and silly and rewarding as they once were. With five barbers on three chairs, if your kid got sick and you missed a shift, you couldn’t make up the cuts; someone else was using your chair. Tito, being a team player, even worked a midnight shift to break up how tight the schedule was.
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2016.

2015
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2015 was a crazy year for me. I had upwards of 40 people trying to get cuts from me every single day for over a year at this point with no advertising. I started asking my friends for help.
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Robert Bauer signed on to be my first apprentice, but I didn’t have the foresight that grabbing a kid straight out of school, teaching him as much as I could on my one day off, and then hiring him and expecting him to be able to consistently knock out 20 cuts a day with me would be stressful and suffocating for us both.
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I then took on my second apprentice, Sharon Loe, because she had a few years of experience as a hairdresser and wanted to switch to barbering. She did amazing and exceeded all my expectations, so I thought the two of them could handle it without me, so I took a shot at opening a second, private, appointment only location for me and my clients only.
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In order to manage all of this I hired Ryan Pemberton to be an overall manager of the business so Robert, Sharon, and I could just focus on clients. Sounded good, but didn’t pan out. Liberty was my baby and when I wasn’t there things just weren’t smooth, not to the level of skill and intelligence of the aforementioned OG crew.
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Being an absentee owner wasn’t a thing for me, so I closed down the second location after Robert decided to move back home to Brevard, where he has gone on to become an excellent barber out there to this very day. I then hired Colin Davey, who had lots of experience working at a high end men’s chain shop that used to be around town.
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I had a team, and I began to celebrate this team with monthly dinners out to show how much I truly appreciated everyone working together in such a tight space. Liberty Barbershop Expansion Success, Volume 1.

2014
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2014 was a huge year for John and Liberty Barbershop. Now with a line around the block, as barbershops became a place for people to look their best again, thanks in a huge part to social media and the internet verifying what criteria made a good haircut or not, business was booming.
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Ryan Wendler, longtime client and up and coming photographer, got a big job for Yahoo Search for stock photos of a barbershop, a barber working, and a diverse, multicultural clientele. It was a no brainer for him to enlist John and a few of his clients to a fun afternoon of photos, jokes, pizza, and maybe some adult beverages and a less than felonious amount of ma*****na.
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The photo shoot was a huge success for Ryan, thereby driving more traffic to John, and adding into the now 22 year history of John the Barber and Liberty Barbershop.