I came into The Cut in Monterey for a simple beard lineup before a job interview on Monday. When I first walked in, the barber in the second chair recommended and passed me off to the first chair on the right -- a barber who was literally asleep until I walked up to him. That should have been my first warning sign.
Before we even started, I explained clearly that I had been growing my beard for 8 months and needed a clean, professional lineup for an important interview. I also told him upfront I had $30 for the beard service, and he agreed.
After that, the barber disappeared for around 10 minutes before finally returning to begin. He lined up the right side of my beard cleanly at first, so I thought everything was going fine. But when he started on the left side, he pushed it dramatically lower than the right with no sense of symmetry or alignment. The difference was obvious immediately.
At that point, I basically had to walk him through the cut myself while watching months of beard growth get ruined in real time. The lineup became so uneven that more and more hair had to come off just to try to balance it out. What was supposed to be a simple cleanup turned into me having to shave everything down because the original line had been pushed too low and could not be salvaged.
There was also very little attention to detail overall hair left all over my face, uneven shaping, and then asking me "is this good?" when one side was clearly much lower than the other.
What really shocked me was at the very end, after the entire experience, he looked at me and said, "You ready for your interview?" I told him straight up, "I'm not even going to the interview because you destroyed my beard." I walked out of there basically BALD FACE after 8 months of growing and maintaining it.
After this experience, I went to the Legion down the street to speak with fellow veterans and told them directly: do not go to the barbershop across the street look what they did to my beard.
I understand mistakes happen, but when someone trusts a shop with an 8-month beard before an important interview, more care, professionalism, and accountability should be expected. Unfortunately, based on this experience, I would not recommend The Cut to friends or family visiting Monterey. THE BARBER NEXT TO HIM JUST WATCHED THIS GO DOWN. LIKE IT WAS ENTERTAINMENT TO HIM. IVE NEVER WASTED $30 MORE THEN THIS. IM NOT GOING TO MY INTERVIEW. HONESTLY I FELT LIKE THE OTHER BARBERS THOUGHT OF THIS experience AS ENTERTAINMENT FOR THEM. ANY OTHER BARBERSHOP WOULD HAVE STOPPED ME FROM LEAVING AND SAID YOU HAVE AN INTERVIEW LET ME GET YOU STRAIGHT NOT HERE IT WAS A JOKE
NEVER AGAIN.. read more
