JB’s Brings State-of-Art Barber School to North OKC

You’ve seen JB’s Barber Shops throughout the Oklahoma City metro area for years — but you’ve never seen a barber school like the one Jubarko “JB” Gaines is currently building in northwest Oklahoma City.
The $1.6 million facility under construction at 11316 N. Penn (between Hefner and 122nd), set to open this July, is the culmination of a 20-year journey for Gaines and the fulfillment of both his dream for today and his vision for the future.
“We have the funding to make it to where my vision is,” said Gaines. “It’s more like a stage for the students — an open floor concept, tall ceilings, big mural pictures on the walls. It’s really going to be nice. When you walk in you say, wow, can i really get a haircut in here for $15?”
That’s right — the barber school offers professional haircuts for the whole family for just $15.
“[People] don’t understand how good these barbers are,” said Gaines. “They’re getting the same quality because the instructors are doing a lot of that work until the students can get to that level — so, its not a butcher shop.”
JB’s Barber School has been offering $15 haircuts to the public for the last 17 years at its current location, at 59th and S. Western. That school opened in 2009, and got accredited in 2013 so that students could use federal grants to fund their education – which costs roughly $23,000 for the full course. The required 1,250 hours takes about 10 months to complete.
The school has probably graduated about 500 students by now, said Gaines. But, because the school was on the southside and not positioned on a major thoroughfare, many in the community have been unaware the school even exists, let alone that it offers $15 haircuts to the public.
That’s about to change when the school moves to the new location on Penn this summer. People driving by are already taking notice of the facility. It looks like a college campus — not a strip mall, said Gaines. People are already stopping to take a look.
The school will host a Back-to-School haircut event on Aug. 8 by way introduction to the community, he said.
Many of his former students later became employed at JB’s Barber Shops. From 2013 to 2018, Gaines opened a total of nine barber shops, in Oklahoma City, Midwest City, Del City, Moore and Edmond. When the pandemic hit, Gaines sold off most of the stores to the barbers who operated out of them, and pivoted to purchasing real estate.
Now, his love of barbering and teaching barbering is coming together with his experience in the real estate industry. The new campus on Penn is owned by his company — meaning a landlord will never again have the power to jack up the rent and force the facility to move.
“I’m kind of introducing the city to somthing they’ve probably never seen before,” Gaines said. “They haven’t seen a barbering school on this scale before.”
Locally, most budget salons do not provide the kind of styles sought after in the community. It takes at least 30 minutes to do the kind of styles students at JB’s Barber School are learning to do: “tapers, a lot of lines in it, detail work,” he said.
“A lot of people want that type of service but they can’t get it from Supercuts,” said Gaines. “The young people want that urban-type deal.”
Typical cosmetology schools or barber colleges don’t offer the same type of training you can get at JB’s he added.
“Barbering is a cultural thing — it’s not the same,” he said. “It’s cultural. The style, the language, everything is a little bit different. They can’t teach that, because you can’t replicate that.”
Other schools don’t offer as much hands-on training, either, he said.
“I know what barbers like – the lighting, the atmosphere,” Gaines said. “I’m able to do that on a bigger scale and give the customers an experience they’ve never seen before of cleanliness, of order — stuff they’re not used to. Somebody at the front desk, people sweeping up, cleaning the bathrooms. The excellence barbering can bring if we get a chance to showcase it. This is a serious occupation, not just a side hustle.”
The school will offer an app customers can use to schedule a haircut and check in when their time comes. Parents can schedule appointments so that the whole family is serviced in one setting.
Gaines said his vision extends to the future and to training the next generation.
“My goal is to purchase land adjacent from it to build a cosmetology school later,” Gaines said. “I haven’t trained the next generation yet. I can’t just think about me – there’s another generation coming – its an opportunity for future generations. If I buy the land, I won’t have to worry about moving, and I’m a pillar in the community for years to come.”
The new school will add nighttime classes as well as daytime classes, accommodating a total of 80 students at a time.
“We’re going to offer night classes on the north side, so we’ll have day and night. It allows for some of the people who want to be barbers to get off work and take the course – plus it allows us to be open for the community just a little later they can get haircuts up to 7, 7:30 p.m.,” he said.
New students are enrolled every month, and the demand is strong among the next generation.
Go to www.studentaid.gov and fill out for the 26-27 school year, said Gaines.