VILLAGE OF FAYETTEVILLE – The times have changed plenty since Rocky DiFlorio started cutting hair in the village of Fayetteville six decades ago.
Neighboring businesses have come and gone, prices have shot up all over, and these days not as many father-and-son duos stop into the shop to get their hair trimmed together—a once-common sight that was treated as a bonding experience or tradition of sorts.
But as DiFlorio will tell you, some things are the same as they were way back when, namely the checkered floor of his parlor on East Genesee Street, the swirling barber pole by the front door, and his business’ reliance on walk-ins—no calling ahead necessary. After all, his barbershop has never had its own phone line, save for the telephone booth that used to be situated right outside.
Feb. 1 will mark the 60-year anniversary of DiFlorio first starting work as a barber at that location, which has a red, newly repainted sign out front that simply says “Barber Shop,” nothing less, nothing more.
Lining the mirrors inside there are reminders of the olden days of Fayetteville in the form of black-and-white photos. In some, a twentysomething Rocky can be seen huddled with his cousins Al and Vic, the brothers who originally began the village barbershop as DiFlorio’s in 1960.
Taught how to cut hair at the age of 14, Rocky learned the ropes early on working at his father’s barbershop, a spot located across the street from the hot dog stand Heid’s of Liverpool that wound up being a little too cramped to fit more than two barbers.
“My father was old-fashioned Italian,” Rocky said. “He wanted to make sure if I didn’t go to school that I had a trade. It was normal in my family to follow the path taken by your father.”
Though he was sticking firmly to his father’s line of work, he decided to branch off and follow his cousins to Fayetteville. Rocky, now 78, came on board at their shop in 1964 soon after completing high school.
Within a week, The Beatles landed in the United States ready to make their live appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” a cultural moment that proved to be a turning point for those in Rocky’s profession. He said young people everywhere were inspired to replicate the mop-top hairdos of the Fab Four.
“What happened is all the kids started growing their hair long down to the shoulders around here, so we lost a lot of customers,” Rocky said.
He added that his business wasn’t alone: the passage of eight years saw his barbershop become one of only a couple left from there to Manlius, but he and his cousins remained in business owing in no small part to big families with sons in need of crew cuts and a number of other dedicated customers.
“The people of Fayetteville have been great to me,” Rocky went on to say. “I’ve gotten to know entire families here through the generations.”
In addition to new faces, the shop has a base of longtime patrons, including some who have been coming in since the 1960s. Rocky said that through the decades he has cut the hair of local politicians, police officers, firefighters, Syracuse University athletes and coaches, writers, actors in town for Fayetteville’s community playhouse and everyone in between.
Though his intention was to eventually join back up with his father or find employment at the Syracuse restaurant owned by his uncle, the Rustic Inn, Rocky chose to stay put, having officially been made a partner by his cousin Al a handful of years into his time at the shop.
Though Vic stepped away from the haircutting business in 1968, Al kept the shop going with Rocky until his retirement around the turn of the century, about three years before his death from cancer.
“My cousin Al was the best, and I even tell customers it’s too bad they never met him,” said Rocky, who was about 20 years his junior. “He was a World War II Navy veteran and he also happened to be one of the better bowlers in the city of Syracuse.”
About a dozen years ago, Rocky’s sister-in-law Teresa Eller relocated from Minnesota to cut hair in the shop and keep it a family business after her first husband passed away.
She recalls that her first encounter with Rocky was when she was seven and he was picking up her older sister, later to be his wife, for the prom.
“In Italian I go, ‘Hello, mi chiamo Teresa,’ and I’ve been a pain in the butt ever since,” Eller joked.
Later, when she was 16, she vowed to Rocky that they would one day become business partners, and sure enough, that promise was kept.
Her involvement with the business turned out to be fate on another level: Eller met her second husband, Jim, when he was at the shop one day waiting for a haircut.
Over the years, Rocky said he has seen his fair share. When he was first starting out in Fayetteville, he stepped away from his barber chair to drive a woman going into labor to the nearest hospital, and some time later a deer busted through the glass entrance of his shop, rammed into the porcelain sink and darted back the way it came.
More recently, he has served as grand marshal for Fayetteville’s Memorial Day parade, and after closing down for three months, his shop made it to the other side of the COVID pandemic’s peak.
Sometime during the last half-century-plus, the shop became better known as “Rocky’s,” but it retains the inviting, comfortable atmosphere that dates back to when its namesake was a teenager.
“This is what Americana is right here when you come to an old shop like this,” he said. “A lot of things have happened here over 60 years. It’s gone by fast, that I can tell you. Real fast.”
Rocky said what he enjoys most about running the barbershop is being able to converse with people about anything from sports to their day-to-day troubles.
One such regular who strolls in mainly to hang out and shoot the breeze is Fayetteville resident Joe Heyman, who brings Rocky and Teresa coffee most mornings and sometimes a box of chocolates to dig into or a stack of history books to leaf through.
Hung prominently on one wall in the shop is a boxing glove autographed by Canastota-born welterweight and middleweight world champion Carmen Basilio gifted to Rocky by a customer just after New Year’s Day.
Rocky, however, has no plans to hang up his clippers anytime soon.
“Cutting hair has just come instinctively to me,” he said. “I’ve done this all my life. It’s like second nature.”
The hours for Rocky’s Barbershop are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The shop is closed on Sundays.
