Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® was recently named in the Orlando Business Journal’s Reader’s Choice Awards as the “Best Place For a Man to Get a Haircut,” for the second straight year.

Orlando, Fla. – November 3, 2009 – Kennedy’s has done it again! The Orlando Business Journal recently held its Reader’s Choice Awards for 2009, and for the second year in a row, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® was named as the preferred place for men to get a haircut. Kennedy’s offers an old-fashioned barber shop experience with modern amenities. Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is a membership-based barber shop club that is quickly becoming famous for its signature straight-razor shaves, as well as its luxurious accommodation for men who enjoy an exceptional grooming experience that is affordable.

Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® CEO, Chris Hurn, said, “It is extremely exciting for all of us at Kennedy’s to win this award for the second year in a row! We are honored that the Orlando community shares our excitement for Kennedy’s, and we look forward to another great year, next year!”

Around the Orlando area, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® locations can be found in Downtown Orlando, Heathrow, Dr. Phillips, Baldwin Park and Winter Park.

Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is an upscale men’s Barbershop concept that operates membership plans allowing unlimited haircuts and shaves at various price structures. The clubs are designed in the upscale, classic tradition of America’s bygone years, when men took a break from the stresses of the outside world to enjoy a high quality grooming experience at the neighborhood barbershop.

Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is a member of the International Franchise Association (IFA) as well as VetFran. Along with offering franchises to the general public, VetFran allows Kennedy’s to give special financing opportunities to American Veterans who have been honorably discharged. Kennedy’s is also a part of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) National Franchise Registry – where fewer than 30% of all franchise systems qualify for listing – offering expedited SBA loan processing. This means that the Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® concept is approved for any type of U.S. Small Business Administration financing programs and part of an elite group of national franchises.

Learn more about Kennedy’s franchise opportunities by visiting http://www.KennedysBarberClub.com or contact:

Bryan Glass, Franchise Development, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® at 1-800-31-SHAVE or Bryan@KennedysBarberClub.com

About Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club®:

Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is a Franchise Concept for discerning gentlemen who are looking for an experience that is the polar opposite of your everyday haircut from the “big chains.” Like most gentlemen, the founders felt out of place at the salons frequented by their wives and the local strip-mall walk-in “chop shops,” so they decided to create a place where they would ENJOY getting the grooming services they need . . . rather than dreading it. While most hair salons cater to women and children, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® caters to discerning gentlemen looking for a fine grooming experience with the old-world charm of your father’s barbershop. Offering the finest in haircuts for men, the lost art of straight-razor shaves, and a modern selection of grooming products, Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is sure to be your favorite sanctuary to relax and enjoy The Best Haircut and Straight-Razor Shave You’ve Ever Had, or it’s Free™!

There are currently six Kennedy’s Clubs open, with 51 more sold and to be developed over the next five years.

Learn more about Kennedy’s by visiting http://www.KennedysBarberClub.com

Our Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® recently saluted the proud American tradition of barbershop quartet singing in a recent article (BARBERSHOP QUARTETS: OR, WHO WANTS TO JOIN “SPEBSQSA?”). 30,000 Americans still actively participate in it, quartets still perform in such public arenas as Disney World – and remember, even Homer Simpson found success in a barbershop quartet (“The Simpsons,” Season 5, Episode 1 – when the Be Sharps conquered the music world).

The traditional barbershop quartet songs are fairly well known – “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” “For Me and My Gal,” and “Sweet Adeline.” But we became intrigued by the Barbershop Harmony Society’s giant online index of sheet music – what other buried treasures lurked there, just waiting to be brought to life in four-part man harmony?

The answer was quite illuminating. For instance, TV fans can enjoy arrangements of “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island,” “The Jeopardy Theme,” “The Happy Days Theme” and “The Muppet Show Theme, ” while 60’s and 70’s music aficionados can hum along with “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a “Carpenters Medley,” “Build Me Up Buttercup,” “Candy Man,” and “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.” We were sad to note the absences of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” and “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.”

What was even more interesting than the songs we knew was the songs we had no idea ever existed – vintage (read: not only before we were born, but possibly before our grandparents were born as well) tunes with intriguing titles that made us want to order the entire lyric sheet for a full-blown psychological inquiry.

Here are a few that stood out for us – and please remember, all these are real songs:

“I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Hot Dogs” – Yes? And what do you intend to do with them?

“The Spaniard That Blighted My Life” – Another argument against illegal immigration.

“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” – Don’t tell PETA.

“Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne” – Yes, and my hamster eats caviar, what of it?

“If I Knock the ‘L’ Out of Kelly” – He’ll probably beat the ‘S’ out of you

“If He Can Fight Like He Can Love, Goodnight, Germany” – And he’s worse than Hitler

“Never Throw a Lighted Lamp at Mother” – What, an unlit one is fine?

“Never Hit Your Grandma With a Shovel” – Seriously – were these common problems?

“Where did Robinson Crusoe go with Friday on Saturday Night?” – I give up. To hit Grandma with a shovel?

So, when you hear the next terrible Britney Spears song, remember – it could be worse. She could record “I Like to Go Swimmin’ With Wimmin’.” Actually, now that she’s been alerted to the existence of it – she just might. Sigh.

We can’t promise barbershop quartets at our Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® – but we can promise upscale surroundings, all the modern amenities including a complimentary beverage, as well as our outstanding Signature Straight Razor Shaves and Haircuts. Watch for more Kennedy’s locations opening soon – and find out how to invest in an outstanding franchise business opportunity of your own at http://www.kennedysbarberclub.com.

In the meantime, please remember to remove all shovels and lighted lamps from your home. No sense inviting temptation.

How Four-Part Barbershop Harmony Lives On

At Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club®, we haven’t yet formed our own Barbershop Quartet (except for a cameo by one on our new radio spot, which you can listen to here). But we do have a fondness for the tradition – after all, we base our Kennedy’s barbershop franchises on the classic barbershop vibe that spawned the sensational singing tradition that continues today.

So this month we want to salute the fine folks at SPEBSQSA – the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America – who keep the harmonic magic alive.

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We’ll begin by informing you that, even though that’s the group’s legal name, they go these days by the less-challenging name of The Barbershop Harmony Society. They apparently only named themselves that original mouthful of words back in 1938 to make fun of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s alphabet soup approach to naming new government agencies. Today, we suppose, they would be “The Barbershop Czars” or something to that effect.

The Barbershop Harmony Society currently maintains the second-largest collection of sheet music, overpowered only by the Library of Congress. That collection boasts 100,000 different songs, 98,000 of which contain the words “Adeline,” “Silvery Moon” and “Gal.” Okay, we were kidding about that last part.

Actually, the amount of modern song arrangements in their library is impressive. For those of you who think Barbershop Quartets probably don’t sing any songs written after World War II, you’ll be surprised (or maybe horrified?) to find an ABBA medley in their library. Yes, somewhere, four men are actually singing “Dancing Queen” a capella.

Every July, the Society holds their own Barbershop Quarter Superbowl of sorts, an international competition to find the best of the best. The competition has its own webcast, just to prove it does know the internet exists, and you can check out the 2009 champions doing “76 Trombones” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmDGntpZC3I (yes, we realize that is not a quartet onstage. It’s more like 4000 gentlemen singing instead of 4. Apparently, they’ve loosened the rules somewhat).

As over 30,000 Americans are affiliated with this group, it’s clear that Barbershop Quartet singing is alive and here to stay. Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® is proud to honor this tuneful tradition – and we hope one day to have our own official Kennedy’s roving band of music makers.

The plan right now is to have them only perform Metallica tunes.

When you come into a Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® for our luxurious Signature Straight Razor Shave™, you’ll always find a friendly experienced barber ready to give you the full relaxing treatment and the best possible service.

But The Intel Corporation seems determined to improve an already-awesome thing. If you’ve seen one of their latest commercials from their “Sponsors of Tomorrow” campaign, you’ll know that their vision for the future of the barbershop business somewhat surprisingly doesn’t include the barber. You can view the spot online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6nOlgNJfHo.

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In the commercial, you see lasers scan a very wary man’s face (an actor portraying robotics engineer Louis LeGrand) – and then a robotic arm wielding a formidable-looking straight razor execute a perfect shave of the one side of his face. The faux Louis breathes a sigh of relief – until he learns they’re about to do it all over again

There are several problems we have with this Future Shave scenario. First of all, since our electronic nose hair clippers rarely function correctly, are we really supposed to trust a mechanical arm to not remove an ear or two along with our whiskers? Second of all, who is actually named Louis LeGrand? Surely, he must be a distant cousin to Pepe Le Pew.

Finally, what is a barbershop without the barber? Yes, there are certainly many opportunities to boost the profit margins at our barbershop franchises by simply following in the footsteps of most American corporations and not actually employing people. And yes, the barbershop of 2020 could resemble a coin-operated car wash, where you sit in the middle of a cubicle and whirring mechanical shears and blades come at you from all sides (tourniquets provided on the house, of course).

But frankly, you can’t shoot the breeze with a robotic arm. You can’t talk sports, politics, movies or TV with a piece of metal, no matter how hi-tech it is. We’ve actually experimented by attempting to talk to a variety of household appliances, and only the vacuum cleaner seemed in the least responsive (we swear the power light blinked twice for “yes” and once for “no” – but we could just have had too much coffee that morning).

The final blow to the whole Robo-Barber scenario came when we discovered the Ultimate Truth about the Intel commercial – that the robotic arm was, in fact, NOT a robotic arm, it was a glorified puppet. And if there’s one thing worse than being shaved by robots, it would have to be by puppets. Imagine having a relaxing straight razor shave and turning around to see Fozzie Bear hacking away at your face. The indignity. The indignity.

So please allow our highly-skilled, licensed, flesh-and-blood barbers to handle all your tonsorial needs at a Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® location near you (you can find the nearest one at our website at http://www.kennedysbarberclub.com). We guarantee no robotic arms and no puppets. Marionettes, however, are under consideration.