Martinez a star at Hollywood’s Barber Shop
When you walk into Hollywood’s Barber Shop at Colfax and Josephine, the first thing you notice are the barber chairs that line the shop. Black male barbers tend to the mostly, but not exclusively, Black male patrons.
Then, your eyes catch the wide expanse of the floor and follow the tile up to a loft where decorative lights highlight the whirling movement of razors, scissors and a blow dryer.
Shellie Martinez is the commanding presence in the loft. She’s encouraging and kind, but tough as her acrylic nails. Her business card says she’s a barber, but like most barbers, Shellie is much more.
For her customers, she’s a counselor, a cheerleader, a business consultant. Martinez has a unique relationship with each of her fellow barbers that she says is equal to blood.
“I’m their mom, their auntie, their cousin, their sister,” she said. Creating connections is Martinez’s super power.
Mykhal Goodloe, owner of Hollywood’s, lauds Martinez as the glue of the shop.
“She’s a bubbly young lady with positive energy. Not only is she a barber, but she has great marketing ideas and she’s committed to this community,” he said.
How did a Latina from Colorado Springs become a mainstay at Hollywood’s? Slowly, deliberately, and with reverence for the cultural institution that she wanted to be a part of.
Martinez uses her caretaking gifts to help people look good and feel good. She has been cutting and styling hair for people on Colorado’s Front Range for more than two decades.
But shortly after moving to Denver, she was drawn to Hollywood’s. She asked Goodloe if she could come in, for no pay, just to shadow him.
“She’d watch me for hours and she’d clean up the shop, sweeping the floors,” he said. “I noticed she would bring her clipper set with her. Finally I got so tired of her standing here watching me that I let her work on a customer. I said, ‘You might as well make some money, you’re in here every day,'” he laughed.
He wasn’t sure of her abilities, he said, “I thought, ‘Well, there’s nothing she can do that I can’t fix.'”
Goodloe didn’t have to fix the cut. After a year of working for free, Martinez had proved herself to him, but then she was left with the challenge of convincing customers that she was good enough to be trusted with their hair.
“At first I’d go down and ask a guy if he wanted a cut. He’d say he preferred to wait for one of the guys. Eventually I changed my strategy, I’d just go down and say, ‘You here for a haircut? C’mon,'” directing them to follow her up the stairs to the loft.
“They’d sit in may chair and say, ‘Are you good at this?'” she laughed.
But after seven years, Shellie’s made a name for herself with as many bookings as she can manage. Now everyone knows that Shellie is “good at this,” but it’s not simply the haircuts that keep her clients coming back. It’s her inspiration, depth and positivity.
Meanwhile, Martinez projects an ambitious fervor in her loft. While yes, her job is to cut hair and she absolutely loves it, she sees her role as a catalyst for positivity, no matter your culture or circumstance.
“My mission is to make everybody feel amazing when they leave here,” she said. “Coming to the barber is self care, self love.”
In the loft, gesturing to her chair, she says, “This is my platform, where I uplift and motivate,” she said. “I always knew it was my place in life to help people. I thought about being a doctor, but I wanted to express my creativity in some way. This is hands-on, creative.”
Every few weeks for seven years, Kadir Kojo Ajan has visited Martinez for a haircut. “Kojo” is a Denver fashion designer and director of the creative agency Visual Studio 7. He and Martinez met before he graduated high school. Each hair appointment is a brainstorming session, with the energy and creativity escalating the longer they’re together, all the while she’s trimming his hair.
“She’s cool as hell. I love her,” Kojo said. “I sit in her chair and she always throws out a new idea, we bounce things off of one another, and have business discussions and talk.”
Kojo recalled a time when he was organizing one of his first fashion shows. He felt nervous about the logistics, being so exposed, and overseeing about three dozen models.
“Shellie inspires me to push the limits. We got to talking and she said, ‘Instead of focusing on the one show, why aren’t you thinking about ten shows?'” Kojo said.
Terrell Williams, a fellow barber, is one of Martinez’s best friends at Hollywood’s. He came to Denver five years ago from a small town in North Carolina.
“I knew I wanted to be a barber. In my small town the barber was my mentor. I saw these guys making a lot of money and it’s legal,” he said. “You see, being a Black man actually meant something in the barbershop. You can just be Black. I call it the Black country club.”
Williams is referring to the position that Black barbershops hold in the community. The National Association of Barbers notes their cultural and economic significance stating that the spaces were for the community and offered opportunities for Black men to run their own businesses, earn healthy incomes and establish themselves as community leaders.
Martinez and Hollywood’s owner Goodloe agree that the barbershop is a neighborhood hub. Despite the shop’s popularity, Goodloe is nonchalant about it. “When I got this place my mom said, you know, that it doesn’t really belong to me, it belongs to the community. I just oversee it,” he said.
Williams loves the community he’s a part of at Hollywood’s, especially Martinez, who is like a sister to him. He even credits her with saving his life.
One day he was working with a client and Shellie noticed that Williams was dragging one foot and that one side of his face looked droopy. Williams planned to go home to rest, but Martinez wouldn’t let him. Instead she took him to the hospital where her concerns about a stroke were confirmed.
“They told him he would have died had he gone home and fallen asleep,” she said.
That experience strengthened their bond and now Martinez and Williams are best of friends, going shopping together and out to restaurants. It’s this warm energy that makes Martinez’s presence loom large at Hollywood’s.
“People are so loyal to me and I mean, I have a million Black children and I’m their barber mom,” she said.
The barbershop family means everything to her. “God brought me here. And these guys… they’re very supportive and loving. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else,” she said. “I have a relationship with them that is equal to blood, a blood relative. There’s nothing that I can’t call on them for. They check up on me. If I’m sick and I don’t come in for a day, I’m getting four or five phone calls. Like I got COVID, everybody called me every day. They would stay on the phone with me for hours.”
At Hollywood’s, Martinez has found what so many people are looking for. A place where she belongs. She’s loved and appreciated, and can leverage that environment to help others feel the same way, no matter what they’re going through or hoping to accomplish.
“To have this platform, a voice, and an opportunity to reach the community, whether it’s while I’m cutting hair or while creating the podcast, it’s such an honor. It really is,” she said. “There is so much value in being trusted.”
A podcast to encourage and support people of color, minority owned businesses and entrepreneurship.
Be a part of Shellie Martinez’s conversations even if you aren’t getting your hair done.
Martinez hosts Choppin it Up With Shellie from two turquoise chairs and a microphone in the corner of her loft.
Listen to lively conversations with local business owners, a politician, a celebrity chef, fellow barbers, and more.
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