Terms of Service

Who we are

Southside Barber Lounge on Chicago LLC, 4813 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55417. Call (612) 353-6035 or email terms@southsidebarberlounge.com.

These terms cover both this website and the shop itself: browsing southsidebarberlounge.com, booking an appointment, and sitting in one of our chairs. Booking with us or accepting a service means you’re agreeing to what’s on this page.

We’ve written it to be read. If a sentence here is doing something sneaky, that’s a mistake and we want to hear about it.

Your information is a separate document. What we collect, who touches it, and what you can ask us to delete all live in our Privacy Policy. This page is about the service; that one is about your data.

If something here contradicts what one of us told you in person, tell us. We’d rather fix the page than argue you out of a reasonable expectation.

Booking, walk-ins, and appointment texts

How to book. Online through Square, by phone at (612) 353-6035, or by asking at the counter on your way out. All three land in the same calendar.

Square handles the booking. Scheduling, confirmations, reminders, and payment all run through Square Appointments, so Square’s own terms apply to that part of the transaction alongside ours. Square’s terms are at squareup.com/legal/general.

Your appointment texts come from Square: confirmations, reminders, and reschedule notices. We don’t send promotional texts, ever. How those messages work and how to stop them is covered in our Privacy Policy.

Walk-ins are welcome when a chair is open. We mean that, and we’d rather cut your hair than turn you away. But appointments come first: if the chairs are booked, a walk-in waits or comes back. Booking is the only way to be certain of a time.

Booking a specific barber. Pick whoever you want. If they’re out sick or their day shifts, we’ll call you before your appointment and give you the choice: see someone else, or move to a day they’re in. We won’t quietly swap your barber and let you find out when you sit down.

Cancelling, rescheduling, and running late

Give us 24 hours if you can. That’s the whole policy. It isn’t a rule with teeth behind it. Twenty-four hours is roughly what we need to offer your slot to somebody else, and that’s the only reason the number exists.

How to do it. Every confirmation text from Square has a link that cancels or reschedules the appointment. It works at two in the morning, so you don’t have to wait for us to open. You can also call (612) 353-6035, or tell your barber next time you’re in.

Move it rather than kill it. If you know you can’t make Thursday but you still need a cut, reschedule instead of cancelling. Same link, same phone number, and you keep your barber.

Here’s the part we’ll be straight about. When a chair sits empty at two on a Tuesday, that hour doesn’t come back. We can’t sell it later. A handful of last-minute cancellations in one week is the difference between a good week and a thin one, and that money is what pays the people who work here and keeps us on Chicago Ave. We’re telling you this because we’d rather explain the cost than charge you for it.

And here’s what we won’t do about it. No cancellation fee. No card held on file. No deposit, no strike system, no quiet note in your file. Cancel late twice in a month and you can still book with us next week, same as anyone. We’re not going to fine our neighbors for having a life.

Because life happens. Sick kid, dead battery, a work thing that ran an hour past where it should have. Call us. Everyone here has had that day.

Running late. There’s no stopwatch on the door. What happens depends on two things: how much time is left before the next appointment, and how long the cut you booked actually takes. Sometimes there’s room for the whole thing. Sometimes we can do good work in the time we have, and your barber will tell you what that means before starting rather than after. And sometimes the honest answer is that we should get you back in another day instead of rushing a fade.

Whichever it is, we’ll sort it out with you when you walk in. You won’t find out at the end. And when it’s the last one, it isn’t a punishment: the person booked after you picked their time the same way you picked yours, and protecting their appointment is the same thing as protecting yours.

If we’re the ones who have to cancel. It happens. A barber gets sick, something breaks, the block loses power. We’ll call you rather than fire off a text and hope you saw it, and you get first pick of the next open slot with your barber.

Two exceptions to flag. Group bookings of four or more work differently, because they involve a deposit. See Private and after-hours bookings. And if you’re wondering how the reminder texts work or how to stop them, that’s covered in our Privacy Policy, not here.

Prices, payment, and tips

No secret menu. No surprise upsell. Every service and every price is listed on this site, and the price shown when you booked is the price you pay.

If your hair needs something different from what you booked, your barber will tell you what and what it costs before starting, and you decide. Nothing gets added to your ticket that you didn’t say yes to out loud.

Prices change occasionally, the way everything does. When they do, the site is updated. A change never applies backward to an appointment you’ve already booked.

How to pay. Card, tap-to-pay, or cash. Payment runs through Square, and your receipt comes from them.

Tips are welcome and never expected. Nothing is added to your bill automatically, no suggested amount is doing anything other than suggesting, and nobody here will treat you differently for skipping it. If you’d rather put the whole thing on the cut, that’s a perfectly good choice.

Your cut, and making it right

Say something while you’re still in the chair. The easiest fix in the world is the one that happens before you stand up. “Can you take a bit more off the top” isn’t a complaint, it’s the job. Nobody here is going to be offended.

If you get home and it’s wrong, tell us. Contact us as soon as you notice, or within seven days of your appointment, and we’ll make it right at no charge.

What making it right means. You come back in and we fix the cut. We don’t refund services, since the time’s been spent either way, but the fix itself costs you nothing, and we’ll get you in quickly rather than putting you behind two weeks of bookings.

Who does the fixing. Your barber, or somebody else if that feels less awkward. You don’t have to explain why and nobody’s going to take it personally. We would much rather redo a cut than lose someone who quietly never came back and never said why.

We won’t make you prove it. No form, no receipt, no justifying yourself, no argument about whether it’s really uneven. Call (612) 353-6035, tell your barber, or just walk in.

What this covers. The cut isn’t what you asked for. It’s uneven. The fade sits in the wrong place. Your beard line’s off. Something went wrong. Kids’ cuts and beard work count exactly the same as anything else.

What it doesn’t. Hair grows, and past about a week we’re looking at growth rather than at the cut. That’s the whole reason for the seven days. It also doesn’t cover changing your mind about the style. If you liked it Tuesday and want something different by Sunday, that’s a new appointment, and we’re glad to see you.

If you’re new to this and don’t know what to ask for, say exactly that. It’s the most common thing we hear and it is genuinely not a problem. Telling us what you don’t want works just as well. Translating that into a cut is our job, not yours.

If something we used on you caused a reaction, whether a product, a shave prep, or anything else, tell us right away. We’ll write it down so it never touches you again.

Kids and minors

Plenty of our clients are twelve and under and we’re glad to have them. A few things that make it work.

A parent or guardian books the appointment and stays for all of it. Not in the parking lot, not next door. In the shop. It’s the simplest way to be sure the person paying is the person consenting, and it means someone who knows the kid is there if they get squirmy.

The booking adult consents to the cut, to any notes we keep about it, and to photographs if we ask about those.

Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian to book. For older kids we’ll use judgment about whether a parent needs to sit through the whole thing, but the appointment is made by an adult.

Where a child’s information lives is covered in our Privacy Policy. Short version: it sits inside the booking adult’s record in Square, and a parent can ask us to delete any of it.

Photos of you and your cut

Our Instagram feed is our portfolio, and the work in it walked out of this shop. Here’s how we handle it.

We ask first. Every single time. Before the camera comes out, and again before anything goes up. There is no standing permission you gave us by sitting down, and nothing in these terms grants us your likeness.

No is a complete answer. You don’t need a reason, and it changes nothing about your cut or how you’re treated. Plenty of people say no. It’s genuinely fine.

You can change your mind after the fact. Email terms@southsidebarberlounge.com or tell any of us, and we’ll take it down. We won’t ask why.

We don’t tag or name you unless you’ve asked us to.

For kids, the parent or guardian decides, and the same take-it-down promise applies.

Where photos go. Our Instagram, and occasionally this website. Nowhere else, and never to an advertiser.

Gift cards and products

Gift cards

Sold and redeemed through Square, so Square’s terms govern how the card itself works, and your balance lives in their system rather than on a slip of paper we could lose.

They don’t expire, and they never lose value. Minnesota law prohibits expiration dates and service fees of any kind, including dormancy fees, on gift cards someone paid money for. We’d honor that regardless, but it’s the law as well.

Redeemable for any service or product in the shop. Not redeemable for cash.

Lost the card? The balance is recorded in Square. Call us with the name it was bought under and we’ll sort it out.

Products

Unopened and unused, within 14 days: exchange or store credit. Bring the Square receipt if you have it, though we can usually find the sale without it.

Opened products can’t come back, which isn’t us being difficult. They’re hygiene items that have been in somebody’s bathroom, and we can’t resell them.

If something is defective, that’s different. A pump that won’t pump, a tin that arrived cracked, a product that’s clearly gone off. Bring it in and we’ll replace it, opened or not, inside 14 days or outside it.

Private and after-hours bookings

What this covers. Two things: a booking where we set chairs aside for your group, meaning four or more people scheduled together, and anything we open outside our normal hours to do. Wedding parties, a family taking back-to-back chairs, a group getting sorted before a big night.

What it doesn’t cover. If four friends each book their own appointment during our normal open hours, those are four normal appointments. No deposit, and the cancellation section applies to each of you on your own. The deposit exists because holding the floor for a group means turning other bookings away, and that only happens when we’ve set the time aside for you.

How to set one up. These don’t run through the regular Square booking flow. Call us at (612) 353-6035 and we’ll build the schedule with you.

Why it’s non-refundable. We’re not going to dress this up. It’s the one place on this page where we keep money you’ve already paid us, and here’s the honest reason. When we take a group booking we schedule staff around it and hold the floor for you. That’s committed the day we book it, whether or not anybody walks through the door.

Swapping someone in. If somebody drops out and a friend takes the chair instead, that’s fine. Tell us who’s coming and what they want, and the original deposit covers them.

Moving the date. A group booking can be moved once, as long as you give us at least a week. The deposit travels to the new date with you. After that first move, or with less than a week’s notice, a change counts as a cancellation.

If we’re the ones who cancel. Refunded in full. “Non-refundable” describes what happens when the party can’t make it, not when we can’t.

Kids in the group. Nothing here relaxes the rule in Kids and minors. A parent or guardian still stays for their child’s appointment.

To be clear about the difference. The cancellation section says we don’t charge cancellation fees, and we mean it. Group bookings are the exception to that, and this section is the whole of it.

When we may decline or end an appointment

There are two situations where we’ll stop, and we’d rather you read them here than encounter them cold.

Health. Active scalp infection, lice, open or weeping wounds, or anything contagious on the scalp or face: we’ll reschedule you rather than cut. This isn’t a judgment and it isn’t rare. Our tools move between heads all day, and the same care that protects the next person in the chair is the care that protects you when you’re the next person. Get it treated, come back, and there’s no awkwardness about it.

Behavior. We’ll end an appointment over harassment, threats, or abuse directed at our staff or another client, and we won’t finish a cut on someone too intoxicated to sit safely under a blade. Our barbers don’t have to absorb that to earn a living, and they know we’ll back them.

If we stop before we’ve started, you’re not charged. If it’s a health reschedule, your slot is held for whenever you’re ready.

What is never a reason. Who you are, where you’re from, who you love, what you believe, how you look, what your hair does, or whether you’ve been here before. That isn’t a legal disclaimer, it’s the point of the shop.

This website

What the site is. Information about the shop: services, prices, hours, directions, and our work. The booking and payment flow itself is Square’s, running inside our page.

Accuracy. We keep it current and we’ll fix errors when we find them, but hours shift, prices change, and availability moves in real time. The site is offered as it is, and we can’t promise it will always be up, always be perfect, or always be reachable.

The Instagram feed and the Google reviews come from Instagram and Google. They’re third-party content displayed on our page. We don’t host it and we don’t control what those platforms do with it. Following a link off this site puts you under somebody else’s terms.

Our stuff. The photographs, the written copy, the logo, and the design of this site are ours. Read it, share it, link to it, screenshot a price and text it to a friend. All fine. Republishing it commercially or passing it off as your own shop’s isn’t.

Liability. To the extent the law allows, we’re not on the hook for indirect or consequential losses arising from your use of this website. Nothing in this section limits our responsibility for the actual services we perform on you in the shop, or for anything that can’t be limited or excluded under Minnesota law. We’re not trying to use a website clause to duck what happens in the chair.

If something goes wrong

Talk to us first. Call (612) 353-6035, email terms@southsidebarberlounge.com, or come in and say so. We’re one shop on Chicago Ave and there’s no department to be routed through. Nearly everything gets solved in one conversation, usually the same week.

No arbitration clause, no class-action waiver. You’ll find both in most terms pages you’ve ever scrolled past. They’re not on this one. If you ever genuinely need to take us to court, you can.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, and any dispute goes to the state or federal courts of Hennepin County.

If one part of this doesn’t hold up, the rest still stands. A single unenforceable sentence doesn’t take the page down with it.

When this changes. If we change how any of this works, we’ll update this page and change the effective date at the top. Anything material gets a visible notice on the site, not a quiet edit. Whatever version was posted when you booked is the one that applies to that appointment.