Earlier this year, Treveon Phinney found himself at the Gateway Mall food court passing out business cards.
It was all part of the 25-year-old's hustle — his rise-and-grind mentality that he learned from his mother and never stopped practicing through boyhood stops in St. Joseph, Missouri, and Grand Island.
"You do everything you can to get your name out," he said.
As he was walking out of the mall, he noticed a space-for-lease sign. The light bulb went on: While unconventional, Gateway Mall might be the perfect spot for a barber shop.
402 Fades, situated next to JC Penney on the east end of Gateway Mall, has been giving haircuts for a couple of weeks, but the shop will have its official grand opening Sunday.
Credit that to Phinney's tenacity and his ability to conceptualize his vision to the Gateway management team.
"They didn't think it was the right place for a barber shop at first," he said.
That didn't deter him. Instead, the kid who has been known to give free haircuts ¯ a good haircut can change someone's life, he believes — showed them mockups of what he wanted the shop to look like.
Eventually, they agreed to give it a try.
"I think I have the best location in the city," he said. "It’s a great place because you get walk-ins all day long."
Every shopper, no matter what they're seeking, is a potential customer. On Thursday, a mother walked in with her two young sons. An hour later, they were on the receiving end of clean new haircuts.
Earlier that morning, long before most of Gateway's shops were opened, a pack of senior citizens — in the midst of their post-breakfast mall walk — stopped by to say hello.
"I want a space where people walk by and want to come in because it’s clean and it’s friendly," he said.
It's all part of the decor at 402 Fades. The 12 chairs — five of which are currently in use — are black and finished in gold. Ceiling lights give a feel of something fancy, but the back wall, lined in artificial turf, is an invitation to any sports fan that this might be a suitable place for some good commentary while the big game is being played on the nearby flat screen.
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Speaking of the big game, a number of Huskers — the most notable being incoming freshman wide receiver Malachi Coleman — have been getting their haircuts for years from Phinney.
He's a charismatic guy with an infectious personality and an ability to make you feel important. Most of all, he gives a good haircut.
"That's my job," he said. "It's to make you look good, have a conversation with you and be your therapist."
Terrance McIntyre, a former wide receiver at Hastings College who's now at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, gets it. He's been going to Phinney for years.
"He's never given me a bad haircut," McIntyre said. "He does a good job. He knows what he's doing."
McIntyre found Phinney not long after he graduated from Lincoln's College of Hair Design. Before that, he was working at Kawasaki to make ends meet and cutting hair — a skill he learned in high school in Grand Island — as a side hustle.
"I was a mobile barber. I would go to my friend’s house and he would have people over and I would cut their hair," he said. "I had been cutting hair since I was 15, but no one was going to take me seriously until I went to school and got my license."
With license in hand, he went from shop to shop and was offered enough jobs to know that he could make a living doing so.
Still, it wasn't until he met Chris Bossio, an entrepreneur who has opened seven barbershops in Tampa, Florida, that Phinney's dream of owning a shop became a goal.
"I've always wanted to meet him and there I was, right there in my face," Phinney said. "He told me to go for it, that I had it."
Currently, Phinney rents chairs to four other barbers in the shop but would never consider himself the boss.
"It’s their shop as much as mine," he said. "That was one of the things lacking in my last place. I had all of these ideas that they didn’t want to hear."
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Cameron Smith (right) cuts the hair of Nash Wiebelhaus, 4, as Raul Hernandez Jr. cuts the hair of Milo Wiebelhaus, 6, at 402 Fades Barber Shop on Thursday at Gateway Mall.