You’ll come for the cut, you’ll stay for the banter.

A walk around Echo Park at sunset has a way of making you wonder why you don’t live in Los Angeles. The city’s diversity weaves in and out of lanes. Young skaters mix with career commuters in carpools. Blue collar workers wait for a bus, as students stroll toward a coffee shop in hot debate. Happy palm trees grow from crooked concrete sidewalks, living metaphors for a town whose beauty is enhanced only by its grit.

In the middle of it all we find Manly & Sons Barber Company, a true neighborhood shop. Think Cheers, with more tattoos and dirtier jokes—and here, the patrons leave looking better than when they arrived. The spirit of the place is best understood by watching co-owner Tony Pin work alongside his team, their candor and joviality will force a smile on even the most hardened soul.

A tiny tattoo of a razor on his forehead immediately suggests the great lengths Tony has gone to fully, irreversibly, embrace his craft—a few minutes spent listening to him muse over the shop and the barbering tradition quickly confirms first impressions. It’s more than a job for Tony and his ideologies bleed into Manly’s atmosphere from top to bottom.

The result is something half-way between a neighborhood social club and a family reunion. Where conversations jump from cult classics to social issues and the like…it’s all fair game among old friends. The kind of place you’ll walk into for a cut, and stay for the banter and low-key relationship advice.

Make no mistake. The clubhouse camaraderie doesn’t mean these blokes are skimping on their professional duties. At it’s core, Manly & Sons is built on the skill of serious barbers taking great pride in their craft. Thoughtful regard for detail and traditional methods delivers top results.

But really it’s in the sounds of the shop—the percussive opening of a cold beer blending perfectly against the metallic soprano of scissors and razors at work—that you’ll realize exactly how harmoniously Manly & Sons delivers the very best of both worlds, together here in their own.

Visit Manly & Sons Barber Company for more information on locations and services .