Mission District Barber Shop With 1893 World's Fair Stations: Fellow Barber

Fellow Barber sits at 696 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, near the 18th Street corner, and on Monday through Wednesday it opens at 8:30 am. It is a classic barber shop in the old sense: a $50 straight razor shave with hot and cold towels, a eucalyptus-scented hot towel with every service, and wooden stations that were first built for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The prices are not old-fashioned, so read the booking menu by tier before you choose a barber.

The brand's story starts in New York in 2006, when, by Fellow Barber's account, a haircut meant a $90 salon or a corner shop averaging $12. The founders wanted a walk-in wait list and a $40 cut. In 2013 Complex called Sam Buffa the F.S.C. Barber founder and said he had split with Taavo Somer, his former partner in Freemans Sporting Club.

The Valencia Street shop is older than the Fellow Barber name. In May 2011, 7x7 covered F.S.C. Barber opening on Valencia beside the Freemans Sporting Club menswear shop, run by brothers Sam and Jonah Buffa. Hoodline reported in May 2015 that the shop had just marked its fourth anniversary at 696 Valencia St. Refinery29 wrote in August 2013 that the barbershop would carry on under a new name, Fellow Barber.

Fellow Barber's Mission page tells the fixture story plainly. The wooden stations were built for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, then went to New Orleans. In 1906 they were sold and split. Half went to Texas, where they saw almost 100 years of continuous use in a barbershop frequented by Lyndon Johnson during his college years. The other half came to San Francisco.

The San Francisco half, the page says, was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire and haunted the city until Fellow Barber reunited the stations in 2013. The same page carries a modern echo: current hours are temporary while the shop undergoes a city-mandated earthquake retrofit. A building that once lost half its stations to the 1906 quake is now being braced for the next one, while barbers keep cutting at the reunited Texas and San Francisco woodwork.

Time Out describes the room as all wood, with a white wood ceiling, brown and white barber chairs, vintage vanities and framed maps gone yellow with age. When the shop opened as F.S.C. Barber, 7x7 noted a 100-year-old mahogany pillared floor and a custom 1920s-style train station bench in the waiting area, with newspapers and coffee table books instead of Wi-Fi.

The Straight Razor Shave is the most traditional item on the Mission menu and the simplest price: $50 flat. The booking page describes hot and cold towel service, hot lather and a regimen of classic and contemporary shave products. Only two Senior Barbers currently take shave bookings here, so this is the service most worth reserving days ahead rather than the night before.

Haircut pricing follows the barber's rank, not the style. On the Mission booking page a standard Haircut costs $60 with a Fellow Barber, $70 with a Senior Barber, $80 with a Senior Barber II and $100 with the shop's Senior Barber IV. The FAQ says Senior Barbers have gone above and beyond its performance standards.

Around the core cut sit narrower services. The Buzzcut starts at $38, the Maintenance Cut starts at $50 and trims only the back and sides, and the Children's Haircut for ages 6 to 12 starts at $50. The Long Haircut, for hair below the jawline, runs $80 to $140 and includes shampoo, condition and a flash style. The Flake No More Scalp Facial is $36 with any barber.

Beard work is priced by tier too: a Beard Trim is $38 with a Fellow Barber or Senior Barber, $46 with a Senior Barber II and $58 at the top tier. The Haircut and Beard Trim combo starts at $98. Skip the $100 tier if all you need is a clipper cut or a quick neck cleanup, because the $38 Buzzcut covers it. Pay up for a reshape or a first visit.

A credit card number is required to hold an appointment, though nothing is charged at booking. Fellow Barber asks clients to arrive 10 minutes early, and anyone more than 10 minutes late is treated as a no-show and cannot be seated.

Cancellation is strict. Cancel more than 12 hours ahead and there is no charge; inside 12 hours the card is charged 50 percent, and inside two hours it is charged in full. Rescheduling within the 12-hour window counts as a cancellation, the FAQ explains, because the barber's slot is unlikely to be refilled. Thursday and Friday slots run until 8 pm for after-work visits.

If the Mission calendar is full, there are two workarounds. Monday through Wednesday the doors open at 8:30 am, half an hour earlier than the rest of the week, so early slots appear there first. Otherwise Peoples Barber on Valencia Street, a few blocks north, is the nearest alternative; Time Out says its stations welcome walk-ins as well as appointments.

Yelp lists 581 reviews for 696 Valencia with a 3.7 average as of October 2026, and the pattern in them is consistent: loyalty attaches to a specific barber. Reviewers name their barber again and again, while the complaints concern individual cuts, including one photo captioned as a fade that went too high. If you are new, read the barber notes on the Boulevard page before choosing a slot.

Time Out calls the shop a go-to for shaves in the Mission, and the clients who return are the ones who want ceremony with the cut: the hot towel, the free shampoo on request and a razor shave in the old method. Skip it if you want a spontaneous lunch-break trim, because the card hold, the tier pricing and the reservation system are built for planned visits.

Walk south from 696 Valencia and Paxton Gate, on Valencia Street, makes a fitting next stop after sitting at a 133-year-old station. The curiosity shop, named for the gardener Sir Joseph Paxton, moved to Valencia in 1999 and still sells oddities, plants and natural-history pieces, sharing the barbershop's taste for old things kept in use.

For something cold, turn west on 18th Street to Bi-Rite Creamery, two blocks from the barbershop's corner. Its site credits Ritual Coffee, another Mission name, for the coffee in its ice cream. Carry home a jar of Fellow styling cream too; the house line is made in the USA, free of parabens and sulfates, and scented to recall Northern California redwoods.

Fellow Barber's address is 696 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. The nearest rail is 16th St Mission BART, about a third of a mile away, roughly a seven-minute walk south and west. 24th St Mission BART is about 0.85 mile away, so it is the longer option.

Official hours are Monday to Wednesday 8:30 am to 7 pm, Thursday and Friday 9 am to 8 pm, Saturday 9 am to 7 pm and Sunday 9 am to 6 pm. Every service includes the eucalyptus hot towel, and a hair wash is available on request at no charge. Gift cards for in-store services are sold on the Fellow Barber website.