Mop City Barbershop Closing

Miami FL

16 February, 2022

6:03 PM

Description

By Johania Charles Miami Times Staff Writer (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) (Miami Times File Photo), the Miami Times Feb 15, 2022 Come Friday, veteran barber Johnny Cheeley will have cut hair for the last time against the backdrop of his boldly colored Mop City Barbershop. The shop, located in Liberty City's Martin Luther King Jr. business district, will soon close its doors after operating for nearly 50 years. Johnny Cheeley, owner of Mop City Barbershop, holding up clippers. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) Cheeley fought long and hard to preserve its legacy and keep it open under the weight of gentrification, a global pandemic and now soaring inflation. He is the last surviving owner of the shop and one of its two remaining barbers. "It's been a very sweet road," he told The Miami Times, before taking his first client last Wednesday morning. "But I knew this day would come." The future of the shop had been in jeopardy since 2004, says Cheeley, when the county adopted the Seventh Avenue Community Redevelopment Plan in hopes of revitalizing the neighborhood. The plan outlined Atlantic Pacific Communities' roughly $68.7 million mixed-used development project, which included 176 affordable housing units, a transit hub, commercial space and a performing arts theater. As previously reported by The Miami Times, Cheeley rejected an opportunity to relocate his shop inside the transit village, although his landlord was ready to sell the building to be demolished by developers for $5 million, an amount much higher than the market value at the time. The Audrey Edmonson Transit Village was eventually built around Mop City in two phases and was finally completed in 2017. Mop City Barbershop owner Johnny Cheeley, seen here in one of his chairs, has cut clients' hair at the Liberty City location for the past 49 years. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) "The politicians' main concern was getting these developers to build these apartments and it's changed the area so much," said Cheeley, recalling his attempt to sway its proponents to consider the development's impact on Black businesses in the area. "Seventh Avenue was the gateway for the Black community in Dade County. When you don't have Black businesses thriving the way they used to and you take the structures away from them, it creates a whole different neighborhood." According to him, the majority of the businesses in the area were either forced to relocate or ran out of business. By 2012, only Mop City and Greene Dreams Shoe Repair were left standing on the lot chosen for the project. Soon the 50-year-old family- and Black-owned shoe repair company's storefront was labeled an unsafe structure and demolished. The county-owned land was redeveloped, leaving only Mop City. Mop City Barbershop stands in the middle of a transit village project meant to revitalize Liberty City that was completed in 2017. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) Like Cheeley, the Greene's did not accept an offer to relocate after the demolition. Already struggling to pay the electric bills at the time, Cheeley could not take on the operating capital required to move the business and purchase new equipment. "I told them that what they thought about doing to our businesses was an insult," said Cheeley, who reflected on the effort it took to first bring Mop City to Liberty City. He recalled the moment when his friend and former classmate Norman 'Jet' Johnson approached him with a business opportunity soon after he graduated from barber school in the 1970s. Johnson, who was the youngest barber in Miami to receive his master's license in the 1960s, worked at Mop City when it was located in Overtown. The expansion of I-95, which stunted the growth of Miami's thriving Black community and displaced thousands of residents, forced the shop to close down. Johnson pushed to have its legacy continue elsewhere. "We picked up where they left off and placed it here on Seventh Avenue," said Cheeley, who went into business with Johnson and a third partner, James Leonard. "We kept the name 'Mop City' going because my two partners were affiliated with the other guys in Overtown. So we've been in business for 60 years when you combine the locations." Over the years, the shop has been frequented by the likes of former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele, The Temptations, the Blue Notes, R&B singer Timmy Thomas, former Miami Dolphins running back Tony Nathan and Steve Harvey. Roughly 30-40 barbers passed through the shop, some eventually embarking on their own entrepreneurship journeys. "Business was good," Cheeley noted. "We had seven chairs and all seven stayed busy all day, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m." Johnny Cheeley, owner of Mop City Barbershop, services longtime customer Gary Gillespie. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) "I've been coming here for years," said 62-year-old Gary Gillespie, a Mop City regular. "More years than I could count. [Cheeley] used to be so busy that you had to wait a long time to be serviced because he was in high demand. I always tell him I now know his routine (for cutting hair) probably better than he does." Leveraging the shop's impact on the community, Cheeley and the other owners encouraged clients to use their voting rights to advocate for Miami's Black communities at the ballot box. Often, Mop City held free cuts events in the community and offered services at discounted rates during holidays. It was a sacred place where Black men – and sometimes women – could go to vent the week's frustrations, and discuss sports and politics knowing that what was said in the barbershop would remain there. "Barbers are like therapists, too, they listen to you and give you good advice based on experiences they've had," said Gillespie, reminiscing on the crucial role Mop City and Cheeley have played in his life. "[Cheeley's] very invaluable to the community. What he's been doing is immeasurable. Wherever he goes, I'll get there. I don't care if he's working part-time or if I have to travel all the way to North Miami Beach." Cheeley estimates that at one point 75% of his clientele was lost to competing barbershops in other Black neighborhoods and the now almost vacant business district, which he blames on developers. Then came the pandemic, which forced barbershops like his to close for months and took the lives of 17 of his clients. "When you start having to take money from Peter to pay Paul, that's when you know things aren't good," said Cheeley, disclosing the difficulty he experienced trying to sustain the business. "You get to a point where whatever you're making is only enough to take care of obligations and can't put anything aside. And you don't want to get caught up in a system so all you can do is get up and hope for the best for the next day." This undated Miami Times file photo shows barber Johnny Cheeley giving a haircut to a regular Mop City client. (Miami Times File Photo) The next hit was inflation, where he saw competitors charging nearly $25 for haircuts compared to his $15. "I thought about raising the prices but I know that there's already a lot of people price gouging," he said. "Especially when it comes to grocery store and gas prices. A lot of people just don't have it at times and I wanted to keep in mind the demographics of the people we service." Cheeley says he's come a long way for someone who never wanted to become a barber. It was Johnson's constant prodding that drove him to the profession. He now admits it was one of the greatest decisions he made, and that he cherishes every memory connected to the shop. "There are smooth roads and bumpy roads when it comes to this business, but there were more smooth than bumpy," he explained. "I should've retired some years back but it's just something that I love doing – if I didn't, I would've given it up a long time ago. The only time you can ever get a conversation out of me is when I'm behind the chair." Despite his plans to close the shop, Cheeley says he isn't retiring just yet, disclosing a plan to work part-time at his son-in-law's Miami Gardens barbershop, which is located at the plaza where former County Commissioner Barbara Jordan's office once was. "I don't have any regrets," added Cheeley about the decision to end his journey at Mop City. "What he provides, you can no longer find," said Gillespie, while sitting in Cheeley's chair. "The younger [barbers] now don't value what he does or what he's still doing. They just see [the job] as a quick buck. Coming here is like when you have a doctor with good bedside manners." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.