Walking around downtown Kalamazoo, you’re never short on breweries to try, but there’s one "tasting room" you might have overlooked, Samson’s Barbershop.
“For us, the barbershop is kind of like a tasting room for a brewery,” says Adam Muncy, CEO and co-owner of Samson’s Hair Care.
The “beer” for Muncy’s barbershop is actually pomade.
His partner, Jake Hamlet, already an established barber in the area, was making the hair product on his own using a modified rice cooker when he asked Muncy to partner with him in 2019 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic allowed them to sell their product internationally more easily.
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This story is part of Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative’s coverage of equitable community development, a topic readers told us they wanted to know more about when surveyed. SWMJC is a group of 12 regional organizations dedicated to strengthening local journalism.