Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
“Lather, rinse, repeat” might be a familiar hair care mantra, but Black Orchid Barbers owner Travis Moore mentions a different strategy when talking about growing his business: “Copy, paste, repeat.”
The roster of Black Orchid Barbers locations stands at five in Indianapolis and Carmel, and Moore said he’s eager to open shops elsewhere.
“I’d like to get to seven or eight in the Indianapolis market,” said Moore, a Carmel native and Indiana University alum. “At the same time, we’re really looking at the feasibility of this model working outside of Indianapolis.”
Specifically, he pinpoints Chicago as a city for Black Orchid expansion. The 44-year-old worked in Chicago as a hair care product sales rep during his early 20s.
“I know the city really well, and I think a model like ours relies on a volume of people,” Moore said.
But don’t expect Black Orchid to invade the big city with big floor plans.
Moore’s business model is based on “pocket shops,” or small spaces featuring two to four chairs for cutting hair.
In Carmel, Black Orchid Barbers is tucked inside MDG Salons—a hairstyling business Moore owns that was founded by his parents 40 years ago. In the Mass Ave neighborhood, Black Orchid occupies 235 square feet on the first floor of the Argyle Building at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and East Street. At the AMP at 16 Tech artisan marketplace and food hall, Black Orchid operates in a modified shipping container.
Jason Kraus—a barber who Moore said is on track to become Black Orchid’s managing partner this year—is a fan of the small-is-more approach.
“It keeps our costs low,” he said. “It also allows us to be at more locations. When a shop has 12 chairs, that’s chaotic if it’s busy. If you have half of those people out, then it looks really slow. Someone could say, ‘Why is this 12-chair shop so slow? Should I not go there?’”
Each compact location of Black Orchid Barbers features white subway tile on the walls and the potential for engaging conversations among barbers and customers. A company motto displayed on the exterior of a shop near the intersection of East 49th Street and College Avenue: “Great Haircuts. Bad Advice.”
“You never know where the conversation is going to go,” said Padraig Cullen, vice president of hospitality for Upland Brewing Co. Cullen helped to bring Black Orchid to the 49th Street location, which is connected to an Upland tasting room by a sliding door at the end of a hallway.
“A lot of times when I’m in there, we’re talking about food,” Cullen said. “But they might be talking about music, motorcycles or anything fun.”
Designs on success
Moore’s parents, Joe Moore and Sue Moore, operated Meridian Design Group hair salons in the Meridian Mark II office building in Carmel and in Pan Am Tower in downtown Indianapolis during the 1980s and ’90s. Emmett Cooper, an icon of cutting hair in central Indiana, once was part of the Meridian Design Group’s staff of stylists.
By 2012, Meridian Design Group had rebranded as MDG Salon & Studio and shifted its Indianapolis operations to 355 Indiana Ave. Travis Moore became a co-owner of the business in 2016, and he opened the first Black Orchid shop inside MDG’s Indiana Avenue location.
Moore said the Black Orchid name was inspired by George Reid, an Indiana Avenue entrepreneur who owned George’s Bar & Orchid Room—a jazz music palace following World War II—near the site of MDG’s building. Reid eventually opened a nightclub known as Black Orchid Tavern at 2403 N. Illinois St.
When MDG Salon closed on Indiana Avenue during the pandemic, Moore moved the corresponding Black Orchid shop to the stand-alone Mass Ave spot in the Argyle Building.
The fifth and most recent Black Orchid launched in December as a Keystone at the Crossing shop at 8555 River Road.
According to global research firm IBISWorld, the number of barbershops in the United States increased from 95,105 in 2005 to 142,659 in 2024.
Kraus, a barber who grew up in Marion, shared a pop-culture theory about the modern rise in barbershops. He credits “Mad Men,” an AMC TV series set in the 1960s that aired from 2007 to 2015.
“Don Draper had the cocktail, cigarette, suit and perfect hair,” Kraus said. “I think that really paved the way for men to start caring about themselves. It wasn’t the messy, ‘I go buy product at Target or CVS.’”
Not necessarily short
Because Moore wears his hair long, he’s not a candidate for a buzz cut, undercut, side part or other styles that accompanied the surge of barbershops.
However, Black Orchid’s relationship with MDG makes it possible for barbers to glean a level of salon expertise from stylists.
“If I have the option to go to a salon and have a salon experience or to go to a barbershop, I’m going to pick the barbershop all day,” Moore said. “The problem was that I’ve always had long hair. In a traditional barbershop, they do one thing: Cut it off. We have the luxury of having access to other types of cutting.”
Moore said plenty of other men embraced longer looks during the pandemic.
“When everybody was home for three months, dudes grew their hair out,” Moore said. “I’ve said, ‘We have to pay attention to what’s next.’ What’s next was the pandemic, and everybody got long hair.”
Another signature aspect of Moore’s appearance is a forearm tattoo of a lightning bolt associated with the Grateful Dead.
Being a fan of live music intersected with Moore’s day job when concert tours increasingly requested backstage barber services.
“It’s just one of those amenities you don’t think about,” said Dan Kemer, a former Live Nation talent buyer who now has roles at the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel and at Indianapolis concert company MOKB Presents. “Artists and crew members don’t have time to get to a barbershop, so we take barbers to them.”
Kemer said he’s enlisted Moore and his stylists to provide haircuts when artists such as Jane’s Addiction, Imagine Dragons and Tyler Childers performed locally.
“I love any time an independent company can do it against the chains,” Kemer said of Black Orchid. “It’s just a much more personal vibe.”
No strangers
Of course, it’s reasonable to describe Black Orchid and its five shops as a “local chain.” But Upland VP Cullen said a personal touch can be maintained when a company adds locations. Bloomington-based Upland operates 10 sites in central Indiana and southern Indiana.
“Their staff and clientele are very similar to our staff and clientele,” Cullen said of Black Orchid and Upland. “They want to be part of their communities and to support their communities. I don’t think a stranger has ever walked out of Black Orchid.”
Moore said Black Orchid pays its barbers, in contrast to shops that charge barbers to rent booth space.
“We’re at 18 barbers, and we don’t have a single barber who only works at one location,” Moore said. “If we’re going to keep people, there has to be an opportunity to grow. There’s personal growth, there’s professional growth, and there’s financial growth—which is what most people care about.”
Moore said Black Orchid uses performance indicators, including booking percentage and customer-request percentage, that can lead to an increase in a barber’s pricing. The standard price for a haircut and hot towel service is $35.
It’s a positive, Moore said, when a barber hikes his or her rate to $40 or $45.
“We want barbers to go through a price increase,” said Moore, noting that price changes are shared with customers a few weeks before going into effect. “Barbers talk about it because they’re proud, and they should be.”•
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.