The family

Same corner, same razor, since 1978.

Barbería El Sol has been on this block for forty-eight years, through a name change on the street outside and three generations of the same family behind the chairs. The prices are honest, the door is open, and nobody here has ever needed you to have an appointment.

Open since: 1978
Generations: Three
Chairs: Four
Appointment required: Never

A row of barber chairs and mirrors under round lamps against the shop's brick wall

How it started

In 1978 Ramón Salcedo signed a lease on a closed shoe-repair shop at 2431 Brooklyn Avenue. He was thirty-four, he had been cutting hair out of his kitchen in Lincoln Heights for six years, and he had enough saved for two chairs, one mirror and a used barber pole he bought off a shop closing in Highland Park. That pole is still bolted to the front of the building.

The street was renamed Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in 1994. Ramón repainted the sign himself that year rather than pay for a new one, and got the address wrong by one digit — you can still see where it was corrected if you stand across the road. In 2003 a rotulista from two streets over painted the sun on the east wall in exchange for a year of haircuts, and it has been touched up twice since.

Luis took over the business in 2009 when his father's shoulder gave out on a Saturday with eleven people on the board. He added a fourth chair, a card reader, and an online booking link, and changed nothing else. Marisol licensed in 2016 and Danny in 2019, which is how a shop that started with one barber ended up with four across three generations of one family.

What has not changed: the shave is done with a straight razor and three towels, kids and seniors are charged less because they always have been, and if you walk in at ten to closing with a kid who needs a haircut for picture day, somebody will pick up the clippers.

How the shop runs

Four things that have not been up for discussion in forty-eight years, whichever Salcedo is holding the clippers.

01
The board comes first

Names on the walk-in board are taken in order, and an appointment does not jump the whole board — it holds one slot at its own time. If you have waited thirty minutes you will not watch three booked clients go ahead of you.
02
Both languages, all day

Every barber here works in Spanish and English and switches mid-sentence without thinking about it. Nobody is ever handed off to somebody else because of which language they walked in speaking.
03
We will tell you no

If the photo on your phone needs a hairline you do not have or hair that grows a different direction, you will hear that before we start, along with what we can do instead. It costs us the odd booking and saves everybody three bad weeks.
04
The razor is earned

Straight-razor shaves are done by two people in this building, and that will not change until a third has put in the practice Don Ramón considers sufficient. He is not in a hurry about it and neither are we.

The shop

Four chairs, a bench under the window that seats five, and a television in the corner showing whatever game is on with the sound down. The walk-in board is the whiteboard by the door — write your name, first name is enough.

The wall by the back is covered in first-haircut photos going back to 1981, and people come in to find their own. There is coffee, there are paletas in the freezer in summer for the kids, and the bathroom key is on a comb behind the counter.

Finding us: Four blocks east of Mariachi Plaza, on the south side of Chavez between Breed and Soto.
Parking: Free lot behind the shop off Breed Street, six spaces. Street parking on Chavez is two hours, and the meters do get checked.

Four chairs

Who is here on which day, and which of them you can book ahead. Chair numbers run left to right from the door.

Chair 1

Behind a chair since 1978

First generation “Don Ramón”

Ramón Salcedo

Founder · Master barber

Ramón learned to cut hair in Tepatitlán at fourteen, sweeping a shop for a year before anyone let him near a client. He came to Los Angeles in 1971, cut hair out of a kitchen in Lincoln Heights for six years, and put the money into a shuttered shoe-repair on what was still called Brooklyn Avenue.

He is the reason the shop still does a proper shave. He will not let a barber near the straight razor until they have done two hundred practice passes on him, which is exactly how his son and both grandchildren learned. He is seventy-two and takes Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Works: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Booking: Walk-in only — Don Ramón does not take appointments
Known for: Straight razor shave
Scissor cuts
Flat top

Chair 2

Behind a chair since 1994

Second generation “Luis”

Luis Salcedo

Owner · Master barber

Luis swept this floor as a kid and has held a licence since 1994. He worked six years in a shop in Montebello before coming back, which he says was the most useful thing he ever did — it taught him how much of his father's way of working was actually right.

He took the shop over when Ramón's shoulder gave out, put in the card reader and the booking system, and kept everything else exactly where it was. He is the one who will talk you out of a cut that will not sit right on your head, and he will do it in whichever language you started in.

Works: Tuesday – Saturday
Booking: Appointments and walk-ins
Known for: Fades and tapers
Gray blending
Fixing bad cuts

Chair 3

Behind a chair since 2016

Third generation “Mari”

Marisol Salcedo

Barber · Shop manager

Marisol licensed in 2016 and spent two years cutting curly hair almost exclusively, which is still what she is best at — she cuts curls dry, one section at a time, and does not thin them out to make them behave.

She also runs the front: the walk-in board, the phone, the schedule, and the Saturday morning triage that decides who sits where. If a child has cried in the chair before, ask for her. She keeps the clippers off until they have held one themselves.

Works: Wednesday – Sunday
Booking: Appointments preferred, walk-ins when the board is short
Known for: Curly and textured cuts
Kids' first haircuts
Scissor work

Chair 4

Behind a chair since 2019

Third generation “Chuy”

Danny Ortega

Barber

Danny grew up in the back room doing homework and started behind a chair at nineteen. He is the fastest hand in the shop on a skin fade and the only one who will freehand a design without drawing it first, which his grandfather has opinions about.

He takes the late slots — the shop stays open to seven Tuesday through Friday mostly for him — and he is the one to see for anything that needs to look sharp in a photograph on Saturday.

Works: Tuesday – Saturday, afternoons and evenings
Booking: Appointments — books up two weeks ahead for Saturdays
Known for: Skin fades
Hard parts
Freehand designs

On this block

The building

A 1926 storefront that was a shoe-repair for fifty-two years before it was a barbershop for forty-eight.
The mural

The sun on the east wall was painted in 2003 by a rotulista from Breed Street, paid in haircuts.
The neighbours

A carnicería on one side and a phone repair on the other. Both have keys to our back door.
The regulars

Around forty families where we have now cut three generations of the same last name.

Come by. That is the whole system.

Write your name on the board and sit down. If you would rather have a set time, the booking link works for Luis, Marisol and Danny — Don Ramón will still be taking whoever is next.

Call the shop Directions Book a chair