York County’s Platinum Cuts to defend Hoodie award for best barber shop

The first cut is over for Platinum Cuts, but the vote to defend its title as best barbershop in America – as decided by the listeners of the top-rated Steve Harvey radio show – looms Wednesday.

And Platinum Cuts needs its loyal followers, and others, to keep the title safely in Rock Hill and Fort Mill.

Winners are chosen by voters online. Voting for best barbershop is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday at neighborhoodawards.com.

Platinum Cuts, with its flagship in Rock Hill and second location in Fort Mill, won the “Hoodie” award in the Steve Harvey Neighborhood Awards competition in 2015. The win was the first for a shop from a mid-sized city. Platinum Cuts, nominated four years before winning last year, defeated shops from larger cities such as Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

The Hoodies are a national event, both on radio and online, and the awards ceremony features a star-studded show later in the summer, when winners are announced. Harvey’s show is heard locally on WBAV-FM, 101.9.

The shop has been in business for 18 years and has a loyal following and a history of community service and outreach. Owner Adrian “Ace” McCrorey stresses to young people that, “You can do anything you put your heart to and put your mind to.”

Just last week, the shop offered $5 haircuts to students from Rock Hill’s three high schools to help them look their best for graduation. Its first day in business almost two decades ago, the shop offered free haircuts before classes started so kids would look their best heading into a new school year. In recent years the shop has continued to be a part of community efforts to show young people that success is attainable.

Winning the award last year brought positive attention not just to Rock Hill, Fort Mill and York County, but to the Carolinas, McCrorey said. He hopes people will again log into the Neighborhood Awards site Wednesday and give him and his team the honor of representing the community at the awards show in Las Vegas late next month.

When Platinum Cuts took home the award in Atlanta in 2015, scores of supporters who had worked to put the shop over the top were part of the celebration. McCrorey wants to take the celebration to Las Vegas this year.

“Teamwork always makes dream work,” he said.

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 1:16 PM with the headline "York County’s Platinum Cuts to defend Hoodie award for best barber shop."