At Boston College, Club Kirk is already something of a legend—an off-campus house on Kirkwood Road known for packed basement parties and crowds that spill onto the lawn. 

But on many weekends, that same basement fills with a different kind of buzz. It’s where William Olohan, MCAS ’27, runs Club Kirk Cuts, a student barbershop that has drawn steady streams of BC students who trade in their red solo cups for quick and easy haircuts. 

“It started as ‘fake it ’till you make it,’” Olohan said. “But now when someone sits in the chair, I’m confident we’re not going to have any issues.”

Olohan’s path to Club Kirk Cuts started during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. With barbershops closed and plenty of free time at home, he began experimenting with cutting his own hair. 

“I’ve been cutting hair since COVID,” Olohan said. “I learned to cut my own hair, and I have four younger brothers, so I learned to cut hair on them as well.”

After arriving at BC, his friends began to notice his talent and started asking for haircuts themselves. 

“People would see me cutting hair in the Fitz bathroom, which is where I lived, and some people would ask me to cut them,” Olohan said. “I started cutting maybe five to 10 people my freshman year, just for fun before going out or something.” 

What began as casual favors quickly turned into something bigger. Friends and family began encouraging him to take the hobby more seriously, suggesting he could profit from it, Olohan said. 

According to Olohan, the earliest and most basic challenge was finding somewhere to actually cut hair. He experimented with several makeshift locations and briefly tried cutting hair in an outdoor garage until he discovered someone had rented the parking space for their car. 

The solution ended up being much closer to home. In the basement of Club Kirk, Olohan’s off-campus Kirkwood house, there was an unused corner that had long been neglected. 

“I have this room in my basement that was disgusting, just like a trash room,” Olohan said. “I cleaned it up, brought all my stuff, and fixed up the walls that were kind of destroyed.” 

He paid for the setup out of pocket, buying mirrors and better lighting, and borrowing a desk from one of his roommates. As the shop has grown, so has its equipment. 

Once his basement barbershop was ready, Olohan turned to the handful of people who had already trusted him with their hair.

He also had a new client base—the incoming freshman class, of which his younger brother, Jack Olohan, MCAS ’29, is a part of. 

“The first week [of freshman year], I’d go back to Newton with a haircut, and my friends would ask, ‘Yo, where’d you get your hair cut?’” Jack said. “I’d say, ‘My brother’s a barber at Club Kirk—it’s like 20 bucks, and he’s really good.’”

Social media has also played a crucial role in building trust and helping the business grow further, Olohan added. Photos of finished haircuts posted on the Club Kirk Cuts Instagram allow potential clients to see his work before ever stepping into the Kirkwood basement.

“Without social media, there would not be a lot of credibility,” Olohan said. “People here, they look me up and then are like, ‘Okay, this isn’t just a very rinky-dink guy that’s coming with a pair of kid scissors to your door.’” 

Word of mouth did the rest. 

“I think people do like to talk,” Olohan said. “It’s pretty rough for dudes to get haircuts out in this area. Everything is $50 plus or a 20-minute Uber ride away. You do a decent haircut, and people are ecstatic about it.” 

As the popularity of Club Kirk Cuts increased, so did the time commitment required to keep it running, Olohan said. 

“Last semester, I was trying to do as much as I could possibly fit in,” Olohan said. “I’d end up cutting for 10 hours straight on Fridays because I didn’t have classes.” 

Now, he is capping himself at around 20 or 25 haircuts a week to combat burnout, according to Olohan. 

“That basement, it’s like, there’s something in the air that makes people go crazy,” Olohan said. “When I’m down there for a long time, towards the end of my shift, people usually will make a comment, like, ‘Dude, are you good?’”

Long before it housed a barber’s chair or a ring light, the basement—adorned with a red tin roof, flashing lights, and wood-paneled walls—was hailed around campus for its parties. 

“I feel like it adds to the Club Kirk lore,” Jack said. “Club Kirk was already pretty legendary, and now—I feel like [Club Kirk Cuts] just heightens that.”

The notoriety has helped draw attention and businesses to the barbershop as well, according to Olohan. 

“The infamousness definitely has helped,” Olohan said. “[Club Kirk] is kind of catchy—half the school refers to me as Club Kirk now, or Kirk.” 

For many students, walking into the house can feel intimidating at first, especially for underclassmen who may only know the house by its reputation.

“You do gotta kind of take a risk,” Olohan said. “You gotta kind of get out of your comfort zone to go walk to Club Kirk and get in the chair and talk to some older junior.”

Instead of leaning into the Club Kirk party reputation, Olohan said he tries to create a more comfortable environment for his clients.

“I try not to push that vibe,” Olohan said. “I think people are often surprised when they come in, and it’s like, a little less fratty. I think that they’re expecting, like, drugs and alcohol everywhere.”

According to Olohan, he does his best to make the experience casual and to get people talking—more like a conversation, less like an interview. 

“People for sure over share,” Olohan said. “[Clients] get a little nervous when I’m cutting their hair, and they just talk. Some people just ramble, and I listen to something that I’m probably not supposed to be listening to.”

The appeal of Club Kirk Cuts goes beyond the location. Olohan believes its biggest draw lies in something simple—actually listening to what clients want.

“The battle in finding a barber is just finding a guy that’s just gonna listen to what you actually want and not just do his own thing,” Olohan said.

According to Olohan, many traditional barbershops struggle to understand the styles that younger clients are looking for. Having someone closer in age helps to bridge that gap, and as a student himself, Olohan says he understands the current trends.

“80 percent of barber shops that you go in are just gonna cook your hair because they don’t understand that,” Olohan said. “Younger people aren’t looking to save money on making it shorter. They just want it to actually look good now.” 

The most requested haircut? The modern mullet, according to Olohan. 

Olohan’s sophomore-year roommate, Timileyin Faba, MCAS ’27,  saw firsthand how Club Kirk Cuts took off. Running a personal training and fitness business himself, Faba said that peer-run ventures like Olohan’s resonate with students because they come from within the community. 

“At the end of the day, we’re all students,” Faba said. “You don’t really have a car, and it’s kind of hard to find a barber—some people go months without haircuts. Having that accessibility, or hearing that friends of friends got a haircut and loved it, makes people more inclined to work with a BC kid.” 

The sense of community Olohan has fostered has made Club Kirk Cuts a recognizable name around campus. And it isn’t just among students—even one of his professors asked for a haircut, according to Olohan. 

Faba echoed a similar sentiment. 

“We always find someone that knows us from somewhere,” Faba said. “Whenever we’re at the gym, someone will come up to Will and be like, ‘Yo, I have a cut with you.’”

As an economics major, Olohan doesn’t plan to make haircutting his full-time career. Still, he hopes the business he built continues even after he graduates—possibly with his younger brother helping to run it.

Olohan didn’t rule out potentially opening up his own barbershop further down the road, too.

“[Olahan], he’ll always get stuff done,” Faba said. “If he has a goal, that’s all that’s on his mind, he’s really gonna, he’s gonna see it through.”