The following article was first published in the November 2025 issue of the CWEA Griffin. A link to the digital version of the quarterly can be found here.
Jason Evans has been cutting hair in his salon at 4902 McPherson, next to Left Bank Books, for 51 years. Jason Evans Hair is the oldest business in the CWE, though the proprietor looks nowhere close to his 71 years on the planet. His favorite mode of transport, a hoverboard he frequently rides from midtown to the riverfront, belies his age as well.
Evans, who grew up in Ferguson, is a high school drop out. He had planned to go into medicine, inspired by his grandfather, who was a surgeon and chief of staff at St. Luke’s Hospital, and his grandmother, who was head of nursing. When he was 14, he started volunteering at Christian Northwest Hospital. “I loved being a candy striper, working primarily in radiology, filling x-ray canisters, etc. I assumed they’d give me the job when I was 15, but that didn’t happen.” Meanwhile, there were 1,600 in his high school class, and the education, he said, “wasn’t great, so I left in junior year.”
His mother said that if he wasn’t going to finish high school, he’d have to learn a trade. He reluctantly enrolled in Jack LaPlante Beauty School with his best friend. “I had no interest, but my mom told me to just get the piece of paper and that would allow me to work anywhere in the world. I was terribly shy, and beauty school forced me to really deal with people, which turned out to be a good thing.”
Evans had a sixth sense about how changes in lifestyle in the early 70s would affect the beauty business. When he was learning the trade he was taught to cut hair with a razor, which made it easier to wrap hair around curlers. But women were going to work outside the home and looking for ‘wash and wear’ hair. Evans knew that cutting hair with scissors would lead to a different outcome for the long, heavy hair that was popular then. Fresh out of beauty school he went to work at Trimmers in River Roads where they were training stylists to cut hair this way.
“I learned how to do a ‘Farah Fawcett’ layered cut, which meant clients no longer needed to sit under dryers or get perms.” He and another stylist at Trimmers, who did the same 15-minute haircut and blow dry, soon found that all the women sitting under dryers for hours eventually wound up in their chairs.
At age 19, Evans opened his first business, Corner Cuts, in his current location, where his mother operated a consignment shop, Etc. Etc. Etc. She had become tired of just sitting there, and offered the space to him. “I charged $5 a cut and was seeing 14 clients a day.”
Three years later, Evans loaned the space to his cousin, hairstylist Chris O’Neal, and headed to Chicago to train at Vidal Sassoon. “We learned 6 different haircuts and 2 variations of each. It was all geometric, very rigorous training, like learning classical piano, you can play whatever you want. With that Vidal Sassoon foundation, you can cut anything.”
In the early 80s, he transferred to Vidal Sassoon in Beverly Hills, where his training really took off. “I was working under Christopher Brooker, lead artistic director and second in command to Vidal Sassoon.” But Evans wasn’t happy in Beverly Hills. “I was working 5 days a week, 12-hour days, shampooing and holding hair like a human clippy. And I was still an assistant making $90 a week.”
Serendipitously, his cousin announced that she was opening her own salon at Euclid and West Pine. So Evans returned home knowing there was a group of women who would go to Chicago or New York for a ‘precision cut,’ which they couldn’t get locally. “I rebranded my business to Jason Evans Hair, word got out, and suddenly I was besieged, charging $25 to $30 a cut.”
“That success led me to psychoanalysis—4 times a week on the couch for 13 years. It was an incredible education that totally helped me deal with clients and not feel like I had to fix their stuff. I was raised to be a caregiver, so it was no accident I was standing behind this chair fixing people.”
Even in semi-retirement, working 3 days a week, Evans’ customer base has grown, mostly through word of mouth, though grandchildren of long-time customers are also stopping in. “I love the intergenerational mix of people coming through the door. It’s been an unbelievable privilege to cut the hair of doctors, lawyers, dentists, students, and celebrities. The truth is, all of my clients are way more interesting than any star.”
With reduced time in his salon, he has more time to work on the firehouse he purchased in Midtown 20 years ago, and create art in his first floor studio. Evans took anatomy classes at WashU and taught himself to draw and paint. 
He loves photography and has exhibited his work at Third Degree Glass Factory. He has also taken pottery classes at Craft Alliance and drops in there once in a while to use the pottery wheel.
Not surprisingly, given his nature, Evans still finds time to help others. He’s been helping a young man who was living in a local park get back on his feet, perhaps his proudest accomplishment.
Evan’s has had 5 landlords over the years, starting with antiques dealer Ed Henderson. Evans says his current landlord Pete Rothschild, a client and friend, “has been the best.” Locally-owned and operated storefront businesses have historically helped to define the character of the CWE. Jason Evans’ 51 years on McPherson are a stellar example.