After moving from Miami to Chico, Nieko Anderson found community in part by going to Victory Barbershop.

“I was so comfortable here, I used to fall asleep in the chair,” Anderson said, while getting a cut from barber Alex Biddle in early June.

“You still fall asleep,” said Biddle, laughing with her client.

Located on Walnut Street, Victory Barbershop offers haircuts, beard trims, line-ups, hot towel service and shaves, as well as hair products. The business is co-owned by couple Reyna Mercado and Jose “Pepe” Mercado, along with Biddle, who said working with the Mercados feels more like family than business partners. At Victory, the owners emphasized that creating a family-like environment is a top priority.

Anderson has been going to Biddle for cuts about every two weeks for the past three years. He noted finding a barber who knows how to work with textured hair can be challenging in Butte County.

“A lot of people don’t know I’m here,” said Biddle. “They’ll meet me and be like, ‘Oh, you’re a barber?’ ‘You’re Black?’ ‘You’re a woman?’ ‘You’re gay?’ I’m a gay Black barber. I’m here.”

Biddle is originally from Vallejo but spent her high school years in Oroville. After moving away for a number of years, she came back to Butte County during the pandemic. In partnering with the Mercados on Victory, she said she aims to make it an inclusive space.

“I want to put a pride flag out front,” Biddle said. “All are welcome.”

Reyna Mercado echoed Biddle’s sentiment. Growing up in Chico, Reyna Mercado said she always went to the barbershop with her dad to translate for him because he didn’t speak English. Now she’s able to offer inclusivity by communicating with Spanish-speaking clients in their language.

The shop also offers haircuts for kids, which the barbers said not all shops like to do because children’s hair can be difficult to trim. While Mercado and Biddle said they don’t mind doing kids’ cuts, they agreed they can be challenging.

Mercado said it’s stressful when kids cry because she doesn’t want to “traumatize them.” While Biddle said kids can jerk in the chair, making it “scary.” Still, they do their best.

Connection

Often, the role of a barber goes beyond hair.

“Everyone that sits in your chair has something different going on in their life,” Mercado said.

Spending regular times with their clients in close proximity, Mercado and Biddle said, they quickly build relationships with customers.

“People will sit down and start telling you about their whole life,” Biddle said. “I think we should also be licensed therapists.”

A big part of fostering relationships with clients is patience, they said. Clients often come in with an idea of what they want, but struggle to find the words to describe it. In this case, they said, they take the time to look up photos of different hairstyles and chat about what each person is looking for.

Sometimes, customers come in with no plan and tell them to do whatever hairstyle they want. In these cases, they try to avoid actually doing what they want and instead pry to get the preferred style out of the client.

“If someone tells me that, I have to ask a million questions,” Mercado said. “I’m not just going to give them what I want.”

One time, Biddle took a client’s word for it and gave them what she wanted to do. After the cut, they told her, “You went too short.”

They agreed children tend to ask for the most outlandish styles. Once, a kid asked Biddle for the same haircut as a character from the TV show “Squid Game.”

“I was like, ‘Nah, your parents are not going to go for that.’”

Trust

The most unique cut Biddle regularly does is on a customer she describes as “an old school basketball player.” He gets his sideburns shaped big in mutton chop fashion.

Trends the two barbers are often seeing include perms, modern mullets, burst fades — a type of fade that curves around the ear — and low fades.

After coming to Biddle for so many years, Biddle’s customer Anderson no longer has to describe what he wants. He’s a regular.

“I just sit down and trust,” Anderson said.

Victory Barbershop is located at 407 Walnut St., Suite C in Chico. The shop is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Sundays the shop is closed and Monday is for appointments only. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, haircuts are $5 off.

Molly Myers can be reached at mmyers@chicoer.com.