Meet me at the barbershop

THE NEIGHBORHOOD BARBERSHOP is never just a barbershop. It’s a meeting place, a bulletin board and a search engine.

“Before there was Google, there was the barbershop,” says KK Atkinson, the co-owner of Lovers Lane Barbershop, which is all that remains of the original businesses that opened in 1938 on the “miracle mile” between Douglas and the Dallas North Tollway.

Our neighborhood is home to a slew of sleek salons offering the latest hair and nail trends, but Lovers Lane Barbershop has hung on in the same location for more than 76 years as new boutique shops and a massive toll road sprang up around it. The Mayberry-esque main street is now part of the big city, but the small-town attitude hasn’t changed.

“We’re a small town in a big city,” Atkinson says.

Her father, Norbert “Red” Mikulec, bought the barbershop from the original owner in 1958, and it became like a second home for the family.

Having grown up in the shop, Atkinson knew the last thing she wanted to do was cut hair. Instead, she opened the barbershop’s nail salon in 1989 in what used to be a dark, creepy storage room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“I was scared to death of that room when I was little,” she says.

Today the small back room is buzzing with chatter as clients sit in close quarters, receiving manicures and pedicures and catching up on each other’s lives. There are no TVs, just a few seldom-read magazines stashed in the corner. You can learn a lot by just listening to the women “gossip responsibly,” prefacing their stories with, “I don’t know, but I heard …”

The talk of the barbershop these days is about how the city of University Park plans to update the miracle mile shopping center to improve traffic flow and beautify the area. It would include new landscaping and light fixtures, along with redesigned parking. A petition against the plan hangs on the wall behind one of the manicure tables at the barbershop.

Atkinson says she’s worried about the potential negative impact it could have on business, particularly if she loses parking spaces or if the updates result in higher rent a blow that has closed some of the old Lovers Lane businesses. It’s hard for Atkinson to imagine the barbershop going away along with all the good it brings to clients’ lives.

“We’re still a community around here,” she says. “The manicure is just a bonus.”

Did you know?

According to folks in the barbershop, there are two theories about why the stretch of Lovers between Douglas and the Dallas North Tollway was dubbed the “miracle mile.” Some say it was named after the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. Others say it was simply thought that it would be a miracle if anything ever survived on the undeveloped farmland miles from the city center.

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Painting With A Twist

Express your inner artist! Instructors lead attendees in creating paintings with a featured piece of art. Bring your imagination and beverage. Perfect for private parties and complimentary valet parking. 5202 W. Lovers Lane 214.350.9911 paintingwithatwist.com/dallas

City View Antique Mall

SAVE THE DATE! Our Annual Fall Flea Market on the Backlot is scheduled, rain or shine, October 25th, 9-5. Fall Storewide Sale starts Wed.10/22 thru Sun. 10/26. Vintage Holiday items arriving daily! 6830 Walling Lane (Skillman/Abrams) 214.752.3071 cityviewantiques.homestead.com