The term “biker barber” comes to mind, but Jim Griffin prefers to be called a motorcycle enthusiast who cuts hair.

For 37 years, he’s pampered the heads of Denton’s elite and ordinary alike, and he’s been riding a motorcycle since he was 16.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Jim Griffin, 63, is retiring from his barbershop on East Hickory Street just off the Square. He recently closed Griffin Quality Haircutting and plans to spend more time with his bike.

View larger More photos Photo store

But he has laid down his shears, packed up his powder and moved out of 113 E. Hickory St., the building that has been Griffin Quality Haircutting and soon will become a restaurant. All the more time to travel the country via RV and Harley with his wife, Barbara, he says.

“She’s a chief prosecutor for a court in Tarrant County, but she’s retiring in February. And then we’re hitting the road,” said Griffin, who decided to close his shop after a leg injury made standing too painful.

On Sunday, he’ll visit with 300 or so of his closest friends and best customers from 2 to 5 p.m. at Fremaux’s Metropolitan Catering.

He wants to show his appreciation for his loyal customers. The party is as much for them as it is for him, he said.

Florist Joe Alford probably wins the “most loyal” prize. He’s been a customer since Griffin’s career began, following him from his first job at University Barber Shop next to the old Flying Tomato restaurant on West Hickory, to a shop on Prairie Street next door to the old Texas Pickup restaurant, then to Avenue B, and Carroll Boulevard at University Drive, and finally to the shop Griffin recently closed.

“He was the first barber I knew who made appointments,” Alford said. “He was a fine person to see early in the day. He lifted my spirits, and then I could open my shop.

“You had absolutely no say in the way he cut your hair. He cut it exactly the way he wanted to. He considered himself the expert.”

Alford liked the way his hair looked and for many years he showed up, by appointment, twice a week. That way he never looked like he needed a haircut, he said.

He raised his two sons on Griffin haircuts, though his wife was dubious at first, Alford said.

“She said, ‘Are you sure you want to take the boys in there? He seems like a wild man to me.’”

Alford remembers once when, fresh out of the hospital, he visited the barbershop in his robe and pajamas. Griffin sometimes cut his customers’ hair when they were in the hospital, he said. And he sometimes gave special customers their final haircut.

Over the years, the men who visited Griffin became friends. Friends like Bill Smith, Millard Heath, Dean Mulkey and a long list of lawyers.

“It became a club,” Alford said. “But he still charged us.”

Griffin, 63, was born in Dallas but moved to Denton when he was 12.

Around the age of 15, a girl he was dating became pregnant, he said. They were just children themselves. She gave up the baby girl for adoption.

Griffin wondered about his child over the years but never imagined he would meet her.

The girl wondered about her birth parents, too, he found out a few years ago. She researched her adoption and learned the names of her parents. She drove by Griffin’s home. She walked past the big plate-glass windows at his barbershop, peeking in at him. But she didn’t go in.

Then an article about him appeared in the Denton Record-Chronicle in 2003. He was trying to drum up support to elect Willie Nelson governor of Texas.

Teresa Walker thought he sounded interesting. And one day, Griffin received a letter from his daughter. He immediately called her, and soon they decided to meet.

“When I saw her, the only way I can explain it is like when you watch your baby being born,” he said.

He and Walker have been close ever since.

Griffin met his current wife, Barbara, when she was in high school and he cut her hair. They started dating, but broke up later and he married someone else. His children, Steve and Sonja, now have children of their own and he cuts his grandchildren’s hair as well.

Several years ago, single again, he and Barbara began dating again. He had no plans to ever remarry. But in 1998, he took Barbara on a motorcycle trip to a rally in Sturgis, S.D. It rained the whole way.

“When we got there, she was soaked but she had the biggest smile on her face. She made the cut. And I married her,” Griffin said. “I’ve settled down a little bit since then.”

She moved into his small house in Denton. They also bought land in Greenwood and built a “lake house without the lake” there. The RV stays in a big carport there, but it is soon going to be on the road, he said. First, he and three buddies are taking Interstate 35 up to Milwaukee, home of the Harley-Davidson headquarters. There’s an Evel Knievel exhibit there, he said, and they are going to see it all.

Mary Kay Copp was the newest of four hairdressers working in the shop when it closed. She’d been there for six years, and the others had been there much longer, she said. Moving day was sad. But her work there was a joy.

“I’ve been a hairdresser for 46 years. It was the most pleasant salon I ever worked in. It was a happy place,” she said, “because of Jim’s wonderful personality. He just has a wonderful upbeat attitude.”

Jennifer Wages was a hairdresser in Griffin’s shops for 29 years. She never got tired of it, she said, because there was always something new going on. When the shop was on Avenue B, he lived in an apartment above it.

“It had been an old fire station,” she said. “It still had the fire pole. He came to work every morning by sliding down the fire pole.”

Griffin is a fantastic Denton historian, Wages said. If he didn’t know something about the city, one of his clients did. And he was a great storyteller.

“He always had a really fun interest. He went through a chili cook-off phase and a hunting phase and an Elks Club phase where he was some kind of grand poobah,” Wages said. “He had deer heads all over the place. And if one of his clients caught a fish his wife wouldn’t let him hang on the wall, Jim hung it at the shop and they could visit it once a month when they came for a haircut.”

The other employees always knew when he arrived for work, she said, by the sound of his motorcycle’s roar.

The shop closing was bad for everyone.

“We couldn’t look at each other without crying,” Wages said. “We were a family up there.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com.