AUSTIN, Texas

On “the Drag,” businesses come and go.

A student’s favorite freshman hangout may be gone by the time they come back for a post-graduation visit.

So it’s a bit remarkable that Wooten Barber Shop at 2106 Guadalupe St. across from the University of Texas campus has stood the test of time.

Recently, Mayor Lee Leffingwell honored the shop’s 50th year of operation by proclaiming it Austin’s Small Business of the Month.

“I’m proud to recognize this important milestone and I wish them many more years of success,” Leffingwell told the Austin American-Statesman. “Wooten Barber Shop is an institution.”

But on the Drag, even institutions have been driven away.

Quack’s Bakery, now on 43rd Street, was on the Drag for 15 years before moving in 1998. The Sound Exchange record store was a local favorite in the 1980s but was replaced by a Baja Fresh restaurant in the 2000s.

Jennifer Barker-Benfield is the owner of Blue Velvet Clothing, a vintage clothes store that left the Drag in 2009 after nine years when the rent got too high.

“The mood changed,” she said. “It got to be more corporate banks. In the ’80s it was small, locally owned Austin businesses. Gradually as the rent got higher and higher, we just didn’t fit in anymore.”

But that’s what’s so amazing about Wooten, she said.

“They’ve been able to maintain through all those changes, to hang in there.”

The shop has made it through 50 years, three different owners, innumerable neighbors and “hippy fads and non-style looks” (the city proclamation’s language) by remaining true to its core.

“It’s been around so long that we don’t want to change it to something flashy,” said James Nelson, Wooten’s third owner, who has worked there since 1992 and owned it since 1999. “We’re a traditional shop.”

The only sign of a barber shop in the building that houses it is a plain blue sign with sideways barber columns over the top of the store. Inside, the shop has four barber chairs for customers and is decorated with Texas Longhorns memorabilia, including a 2013-14 basketball schedule signed by the team.

The barbers treat their patrons like old friends and even give them a neck and shoulder massage with a handheld massager after the cut — a barber shop feature that is now a rarity.

“It’s that classic barber shop feel,” said Ben Meadows, 26, who started coming to the shop when he moved to Austin about a year ago. “We talk sports, we talk hunting, we talk fishing.

“It makes a big town like this feel a bit smaller,” he added.

And, of course, there’s the location: across the street from UT, which provides the shop’s biggest clientele.

One of the best parts of the job, Nelson says, is watching students come in as freshmen and later seeing them come in preparing to interview for their first jobs.

“We wish them luck and say, ‘Send friends because you’re on the way out,’” he joked.

Many students keep coming even after graduation. Brian Muskopf has had his hair cut at Wooten since he was a freshman at UT in 1977.

“You feel very comfortable in there. It’s laid-back, easygoing and low stress, and you get a good haircut,” he said. “It’s been here 50 years. It’s kind of amazing.”

The shop’s clientele even includes university officials and local politicians, including Leffingwell, who always gets his hair cut by barber Don Stafford.

So what does the shop’s lasting legacy mean? Leffingwell has a simple answer.

“It shows that they give good haircuts.”