Midtown Barber Shop Carrying an 1896 London Pedigree: Pall Mall Barbers

Pall Mall Barbers works out of the Lower Concourse at 10 Rockefeller Plaza, open 9 am to 7 pm Monday through Saturday and closed on Sunday, and its Royal Shave starts at $99 for a full hour. This is the New York outpost of a London barber shop that began in 1896 as the Pall Mall Toilet Saloon near Trafalgar Square, and the Midtown room was fitted to carry that lineage, with oak-paneled walls, regency style tiling and classic barbers' chairs beneath Rockefeller Center.

The story starts on Whitcomb Street in London, where the Pall Mall Toilet Saloon opened in 1896 near Trafalgar Square. By the time Richard Marshall arrived, the business was, in the words of a trade profile, "a shadow of its former self." Marshall bought the original store from the previous family owners in 2005, when he was 28, and rebuilt the name across central London, growing it from one shop to six before looking abroad.

Marshall's own route into the trade began unusually early. He started barbering at 12, left formal education at 15 to cut hair full time, won his college's student-of-the-year award two years running and took the South of England Championships. By 21 he was working in Mayfair. In the King's New Year Honours 2026 he was appointed MBE, and the company marked 130 years since that first Whitcomb Street saloon in the same year.

New York was the first city outside London. The opening announcement called Rockefeller Center the brand's "first international Barbershop," staffed with barbers hand-picked from across the city, and Marshall later wrote that the move demanded "bold decision-making, strategic planning, and above all, resilience." He traces the ambition to watching Trading Places as a young man, which goes some way to explaining why he chose a Midtown address surrounded by office towers.

Take the 10 Rockefeller Plaza entrance down to the concourse level and the shop-fit reads as a deliberate period piece. The opening notes describe oak-paneled walls, regency style tiling, classic fittings and the finest barbers' chairs, and Marshall's later essay adds that "the dark wood furnishings nod to our London heritage." Photo captions on the Fresha listing point out leather seating, wood accents, a tiled floor and shelves stocked with shave oils and creams.

The clientele matches the postcode. Marshall describes early customers ranging "from Wall Street financiers seeking sharp precision to creatives in search of a unique edge," and a later company post mentions CEOs dropping in after board meetings, media personalities arriving before shoots and international tourists. Fresha reviews posted in October 2026 add texture: one man needed a fifteen-minute tune-up before a wedding, another praised Rodica for taking time to get a cut and beard trim right.

The shaving section on Fresha has four entries. The Royal Shave starts at $99 and is booked as a one-hour service, the longest razor appointment in the shop. The Luxury Wet Shave starts at $74 for 45 minutes, and the official shaving page calls it a hot towel shave that delivers "a smooth, irritation-free finish" while hydrating the skin. The Express Shave starts at $55 and is booked for 30 minutes.

The official site pitches the Express Shave at "busy professionals seeking a quick, clean, and refined grooming experience," which at Rockefeller Center means people with a meeting upstairs at the top of the hour. A Head Shave also starts at $55, runs 30 to 45 minutes and is suggested as a pairing with beard grooming. For beards alone, the Quality Beard Trim starts at $33 and the Luxury Beard Trim at $74.

An honest judgment: skip the Royal Shave if you are squeezing a visit between calls, because it is blocked as a full hour and rushing it wastes the $99. The Express Shave covers the essentials in half the time. Skip the shop altogether if you want one fixed price board, since every barber here is independent and sets their own services and prices, and the Fresha figures are listed as starting points rather than flat rates.

Haircuts follow the same tiered logic. The Quality Haircut starts at $54 for 30 minutes and is the most reviewed item on the menu, with 1,154 ratings on Fresha. The Premium Haircut starts at $77 for 45 minutes, while the Skin Fade with Haircut is a flat $74 for 45 minutes. For a tidy clipper job, the Short Back and Sides starts at $35 and takes 15 minutes.

At the top sits the Luxury Haircut, starting at $120 for an hour. Fresha describes it as the shop's "most comprehensive haircut experience," with warm towel preparation, shampoo, razor detailing, precision finishing and styling, aimed at longer hair, restyling or scissor-focused work. At the other end, the Haircut Refresh costs a fixed $40 for 15 minutes and is built for clean-up around the sides, neckline and edges between full cuts, explicitly not a fade.

The official services page states the policy plainly: "Walk-ins are welcome anytime," but "Appointments Take Priority." Bookings run through Fresha, linked from the Book Now page on pallmallbarbers.nyc, or by phone. Eight barbers are listed on the site, each managing their own schedule, so a walk-in can be seated quickly or wait behind a run of booked clients. For anything longer than a Haircut Refresh, an online reservation removes that gamble.

Plan B if your preferred barber is fully booked: open the Fresha calendar under a different barber rather than a different day, since each of the eight sets their own hours. If the whole shop is full on a Saturday, a weekday slot at the 9 am opening is the other route, and a Haircut Refresh or Express Shave fits into gaps that would never hold the hour-long Royal Shave or Luxury Haircut.

The shop's concourse links underground to the 47-50 Streets-Rockefeller Center subway mezzanine, but after a hot towel shave it is worth surfacing. Head up to the Channel Gardens off Fifth Avenue, the planted promenade running between La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building, an apt neighbor for a barber shop that trades on its London roots. The gardens lead straight toward the sunken plaza above the shop.

From the Channel Gardens, cross Fifth Avenue to St. Patrick's Cathedral, whose twin spires face Rockefeller Center directly across the street. If you are heading west instead, Radio City Music Hall anchors the Sixth Avenue side of the complex, and its marquee makes an easy landmark for anyone returning to the B, D, F or M trains. Either route turns a 30-minute Express Shave into a proper Midtown lunch break.

Address: 10 Rockefeller Plaza, Lower Concourse, New York, NY 10020. The nearest subway is 47-50 Streets-Rockefeller Center, served by the B, D, F and M trains, with a mezzanine connecting to Rockefeller Center's underground passages. The official site lists hours as 9 am to 7 pm Monday through Saturday, with Sunday closed. Bookings go through Fresha or the Book Now page, and Fresha notes instant confirmation and pay by app.

Because prices are set barber by barber, the figures in this guide are the Fresha starting points: $55 for the Express Shave, $74 for the Luxury Wet Shave, $99 for the Royal Shave, $54 for a Quality Haircut and a fixed $40 for the Haircut Refresh. Budget the time as carefully as the money, since the Royal Shave and Luxury Haircut each take a full hour in the concourse chairs.