This famous barbershop never goes out of style. Be sure and see our behind-the-scenes video here.

Story by Anna Klassen
Photos by Rebecca Leisher
Forty years ago, men’s track and field coach Bill Bowerman and former Ducks track star Phil Knight developed the first Nike running shoe. Today, Nike makes more than $19 billion in revenue each year. Forty years ago, Steve Prefontaine enrolled in the University of Oregon. Today, the University is dubbed “Track Town USA” and is synonymous with the famed athlete. Forty years ago, a barbershop on campus offered affordable haircuts and a relaxed environment for men to be men. Today, this hasn’t changed a hair.
On East 13th Avenue across from the Duck Store lies the Red Rooster Barber Shop. With its hole-in-the-wall ambiance and old school charm, the Red Rooster is a time capsule of tradition and continuing friendships over the last forty years. Pete Peterson, the shop’s owner and head barber, has been cutting hair from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday since the store opened in 1970. However, Peterson originally didn’t  plan on being a barber.
“I was trying to become a police officer, but I was half an inch too short,” Peterson says. “My uncle owned a barber college in Eugene, and when I got to the point of needing to do something, I went to barber school.”
Today, Peterson’s standard work uniform is a white-and-blue pinstriped button-down shirt, black slacks, and a white Red Rooster ball cap. The metal rims of his glasses compliment the silver hues in his fine hair and neatly kept mustache.
A younger man sits perched in Peterson’s barber chair listening intently as Peterson talks while snipping away at the customer’s straight brown locks. “This is actually only my second time here,” says the man getting a haircut. “It’s kind of cool to hear all about it.”
“When you come in here, something magical happens,” Peterson says. “Once a person comes through these doors, there’s a different feeling toward this place and the guys inside. Why do people get their haircuts here? I don’t know,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
“It certainly ain’t the haircuts!” says Peterson’s colleague Jim, cracking a smile while trimming a young boy’s hair one stool down.
The white walls of the Red Rooster’s interior are barely visible underneath the immense assortment of posters, sports memorabilia, and other collectibles Peterson has hung over the years. Not to mention stack after stack of Sports Illustrated and Playboy magazines.
“Everything in here is from customers who have given it to the shop,” Peterson says. “Turn around and look up,” he says, pointing to a poster of Ernie Kent coaching a UO basketball game. “Now look at his elbow!” He says with interest. Beneath the former UO basketball coach’s right arm is Peterson, sitting in the crowd. “They were trying to take a picture of me but Ernie stepped in front of them,” he says, letting out a light chortle.
A deer head hangs in the corner and red roosters in various forms and sizes are mixed in with all the chaos. Adjacent to the stuffed head is a picture of Peterson showing a small child, his grandson Travis, a Playboy magazine. In an era where everything is assumed to be politically correct, the Red Rooster is well, not.
“I don’t know if any of us come here for the haircut,” says Joe Giansante, UO’s Senior Associate Athletic Director. “It’s the last place where you can go to be a man where there aren’t any women. It’s one place you can go and look at the deer horns on the wall and read Playboy magazine and not be embarrassed about it. That’s really what it’s all about. You can go in and talk about fishing, talk about being outside, talk about girls – that’s what we do.”
Giansante isn’t the only University legend to have his locks trimmed by Peterson; Doug Little has gotten his haircut at the Red Rooster since his first year playing basketball for the University in 1969.
“Pete knows what I want. He’s just a great guy with great stories and he’s full of B.S.” Little says, revealing a grin. “The haircuts are fifteen dollars a piece, but even if they were thirty I’d still go there.”
To celebrate four decades in business, Peterson held a party next door to the shop at Taylor’s Bar and Grille earlier this year on May 14, and invited some of his longtime friends and customers to share in the festivities. The day of the event, the pool tables at Taylor’s are covered in posters collaged with pictures of Peterson and his customers. Bruce Coldren, a former UO basketball player, stands hovering over a photograph of Ron Lee, a former teammate.
“I had the best afro, not Ronnie,” he says, pointing to the photograph. “Seriously, I was voted best afro out of all the guys.” Nowadays, Coldren steers clear of an afro in Peterson’s chair. “Now I just tell him to make me look pretty, although that’s hard to do anymore,” he says jokingly. Coldren points to another picture of Peterson and himself in a fishing boat: “Pete was the first one to take me fishing up here and now it’s one of my favorite hobbies.”
Looking out on the crowd, Peterson spots an old friend, Gary Zimmerman, a former American football offensive lineman for the UO. Peterson drags Zimmerman to the front of the room and the two stand side-by-side as Peterson begins to share a story with the group.
“He’s a big fella,” he says looking up at Zimmerman, “One time he walked into my shop and I said ‘Gary, turn around,’ so he turned around, I said, ‘Bend down.’ When he bent down I kicked him in the butt, and I said, ‘Now I’m gonna tell everyone I kicked your ass!’”
Known for stories and humor such as this, Peterson’s clients visit the Red Rooster for more than a trim. As Peterson’s son Robert says, “You’re gonna have the stories, the hard times, the jokes – It’s a barbershop.”
Through the mass of sports jerseys, rooster collectables, and autographed memorabilia is a traditional, humble, and not so politically correct man’s man barbershop. But this shop has more to show for its four decades of service than the autographed jerseys and photos that hang above the barber stools: an honest connection to people.
“I made a promise to myself a long, long time ago that I was going to make friends out of my customers, and not customers out of my friends,” says Peterson.

Want to learn more about Eugene’s top haircutting establishments? Take a look at this January 2010 profile.

Gallery • 3 Photos

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The Forty-Year-Old Rooster