The school bus is here. Only, this bus isn’t for school – it’s actually a mobile barbershop.
Situated just across from the USC Village Target, at first glance this unorthodox shop looks like your average school bus. But the striped red, white and blue pole and the “HECCUTS” customized license plate suggest otherwise.
Step inside, and gone are the rows of the drab, high-backed benches that lead to aching backsides. Instead, you’ll find Hector the Barber, or Hector Trinidad, who retrofitted the decommissioned school bus as a mobile barbershop, serving USC and the South Los Angeles community.
But according to Trinidad, the choice to cut hair on a school bus a block from both the 32nd Street USC Performing Arts Magnet and the USC campus was not planned.
“It’s just a coincidence,” Trinidad said. “I’m next to a school.”
Hector the Barber has become a staple of the USC and surrounding communities when it comes to local barbershops.
But long before Trinidad started bringing trims and cuts to locals via bus, he was a 16-year-old high schooler trying to save money.
“My friends noticed that I had a clean cut,” Trinidad said, “and they asked me who cut my hair and I said, ‘I did.’”
Trinidad said he enjoyed executing his own haircut as a teen and soon drew the attention of others interested in his barber skills. From there, he expanded his craft and began cutting hair for his friends, his father, and even a few dogs.
By 2000, Trinidad began cutting hair professionally. He originally had a shop, but sold it to another barber. In July 2021, he invested his money in the yellow bus capable of providing both transportation and a place to sit for a unique hairdo.
“This company was selling buses,” Trinidad said. “But this was the last one, the last one, and they just wanted to get rid of it, at almost any price. So I got it for a crazy price.”
For Trinidad, it was more economically efficient to have a bus than a shop in Los Angeles.
“I don’t have to pay rent or utilities,” he said. “What I pay now in gas and insurance – I couldn’t even tell you the fraction that I’m paying. I’m paying not even a third of what I used to pay in rent.”
To avoid paying hefty L.A. parking fees, Trinidad bounces around between parking spots near the Target on campus, but he also takes his operation on the road for events like weddings.
“I’ll go to the customer,” he said. “When I have [the bus], it’s much more accessible.”
At larger events, Trinidad brings a partner along to provide a more efficient service, but he runs the shop individually and has never advertised his business.
In fact, he prides himself on his “zero percentage of advertising,” and instead grows his customer base through word of mouth. “Somebody told me” is the source of most of his business, he said. This presence in the community allows Trinidad to meet more customers and get to know them on a personal level – his favorite part about his job.
Jackson Sutherlin, a USC sophomore and customer of Trinidad’s, has gone to Hector the Barber for every haircut he’s received as a student in Los Angeles.
“He’s a pretty cool guy, can have a really cool conversation—very personable,” Sutherlin said. “And yeah, it’s in a bus. It’s very unique. I’ve never had a haircut in a vehicle before.”
Sutherlin first spotted Trinidad’s bus as he was walking to campus to go to class.
“I would see people getting haircuts on a bus, like that’s pretty cool,” Sutherlin said. “Other people I know started going to him and said he was giving out good haircuts.”
Sutherlin went on to share that he would “definitely go back” to Hector the Barber for future cuts. But haircutting services aside, Sutherlin also values the personability that Trinidad’s barbershop on wheels provides.
“In terms of all the places around here, they offer pretty similar services,” he said. “But with Hector, he’s a down to earth guy so you can build an actual relationship. It’s not just the service he’s providing, it’s more like a friend doing it.”
When looking to the future of his business, Trinidad hopes to upgrade the interior of the bus. He’d like to flatten the floorboards and even joked about adding a foosball table or an arcade.
At the end of the day, Trinidad’s main goal is “making customers like you guys just happy” so that they will come back again and keep spreading the word to their friends.