When Jeannie Granberry assumed ownership of Dickey’s Old Time Barber Shop in 2000, she made it a point to uphold the family atmosphere and customer service her stepfather Maurice Dickey first created 14 years before.

For nearly 30 years, the Sugar Land barbershop has serviced generations of families and has also attracted new customers by offering the same services it offered in 1986.

“A barbershop is nothing but a building,” Granberry said. “It is nothing without the customers [who] keep coming back month after month and year after year.”

Granberry, also known as Mama to her clients, began as a barber at Dickey’s Old Time Barber Shop in 1988. Granberry said she addresses each client on a first-name basis and has accumulated hundreds of family photos for a collage on the walls inside the barbershop to pay homage to the relationships she has developed over the last three decades.

“We are here when your dad comes in and tells us ‘We are going to have a baby,’” she said. “We are here when you get your first haircut. We are here when you first start school. We are here when you get your driver’s license and we are here when you graduate.”

Granberry works alongside her two barbers Buddy Torres and Brandon Falcon. Torres and Falcon joined the barbershop in 2008 and 2009, respectively, after Granberry struggled to find permanent barbers following Dickey’s retirement in 2000.

Torres has worked as a barber for nearly 40 years, and got his start as an apprentice for his father. During his seven years at Dickey’s, Torres said the relationships he has built with clients has set Dickey’s apart from the other salons and barbershops he worked at previously.

“I was not even here for two months and the people here treat you like family,” Torres said.

Granberry said as she begins to think about retirement, the future of the barbershop will be passed to Falcon. Although Granberry does not have immediate plans for the future of the barbershop, she said it will continue to offer the same services and family environment it has maintained for the last 30 years.

“I am not the future,” she said. “Whatever the future holds for Dickey’s Old Time Barber Shop, I know that when the day comes and I am not able to do this anymore, the barber shop will still be in good hands and the customers will be taken care of.”