What Matters Co. and Barbershop strives to be not just a place where you get a haircut, but a place you can find refreshment and community through conversation, coffee, music and barbering.
THE DREAM: WHERE WE STARTED
What Matters Co. and Barbershop started as a dream to bring the classic experience of a barbershop to a modern society by focusing on things like community, conversation, and relaxation, as well as the details that surround a nice haircut, including hot lather, straight razors, steam towels and astringent . With that all in mind, we never want to shift the focus off of you getting the best haircut that makes you feel confident with a hairstyle that you feel equipped to reproduce from your home. We achieve this through listening to your current process, providing you with quality all natural and organic products that promote hair health, and educating you how to use the products and tools you either all ready have or the ones we point you to.
THE DREAM: MORE THAN A BARBERSHOP
From the original drive to bring a new barbering experience to Hamburg, we began to imagine What Matters Co becoming a place where expression at exceptional levels would be celebrated. When you walk in, you’ll be walking into an experience: clean classic and vintage furniture, barber chairs, and chess table, locally roasted coffee, local hair and lifestyle products from Sheer Revival and Lancaster Beard Company, as well as apparel, pottery by Caleb Anthony Ceramics and art by Jonathan Bond and other local creators. We believe that local businesses and artists are what hold communities and our nation together, so we always choose the best products as closet home as we can. We also love music, and host a variety of music artists on specific dates that will be posted as soon as they are booked.
We know anything beyond barbering will be fluid and we love it that way. Each time you come in, you will be able to experience the space in a little bit of a different way.
THE TEAM
At the moment, What Matters Co is a one-employee shop. On any given day, I may be the only one, or may be accompanied by one of our community vendors or friends. While I, Matthew Baker, the founder, don’t have the means to have other employees, I do like to keep my local friends and family involved in what I’m doing, because things are always better together.
Matthew Baker
I was born and raised in Berks County, moving from Allentown, to Fleetwood, to Rehrersburg. I graduated Tulpehocken High School in 2014. I was always into music and writing, as well as sports and the like, and attended BCTC for Plumbing and Heating. Following high school, I worked for a local plumbing company in Lenhartsville, went to apprenticeship school from 2014-2018, and became a licensed plumber.
Along the way, through a friend, I discovered and viewed barbering as the art form it is and fell in love with it and started cutting hair as a hobby in 2016. Once I finished plumbing school, I found that barbering was the profession for me and I decided to attend Barber Styling Institute. I achieved my barber license in the beginning of 2020. Coming out of school, I was looking for a barber shop to work in, but couldn’t find one close by that was interested in pursuing the type of shop I was interested in opening. So, I set out to open what we now know as What Matters Co.
