The Tattooers
Four tattooers, one studio, the same corner of Roosevelt Blvd in Havelock since 1983. The door is open seven days a week, 12 to 7. Here is who you will meet when you walk in.
Meet the Team
Lauren Tedder
American Traditional · Fineline · Dotwork
Second-generation tattooer. Lauren started tattooing in her early teens, apprenticed at the shop, and has been at it for twenty years. She tattoos American Traditional with the black laid in heavy, and fineline and dotwork with the patience they take. Bring her a first tattoo and she will take it as seriously as a sleeve.
Dave Tedder
American Traditional · Japanese Irezumi
Dave has been tattooing for twenty-six years, most of it American Traditional and Japanese work. Large Japanese pieces are his main work: sleeves, backs and body suits drawn as one design and built across full-day sessions. Before this he worked out of Atlanta and traveled to tattoo, Europe included, and he still takes conventions and guest spots. Ask at the desk which days he is in, or send the idea on the tattoo request form.
Cabot Lerue
American Traditional · Birds · Lettering
Cabot is from Tennessee and started tattooing in Atlanta around 2009, apprenticing at a shop Dave was managing at the time. He has worked at Permanent Vacation Tattoo outside St. Louis and Jolly Roger Tattoo in McDonough, Georgia, and ran a tattoo supply company for a few years. He tattoos birds better than anyone we know, ducks and herons and hawks, brings a sign painter’s eye to banners and script, and does solid American Traditional. He also runs a machine shop, and the machinist in him shows in how a tattoo gets built. A visitor here since 2015, full time now.
It’s Glitter
Bubblegum Traditional · Fineline · Dotwork
G started tattooing in Miami and learned much of what she knows at Tattoos by Lou, the oldest shop in the city, before a long run at Cobra Classic Tattoo in Ocala, Florida, where her style came together. Bubblegum traditional: traditional bones, candy color, and a good deal less restraint. She tattoos fineline and dotwork too, so an afternoon can run from a heavy-black panther to a stippled little sprig. A couple of guest spots here turned into full time.
Family tattooing since 1983
Jeff Cohen opened The Custom Tattoo Company in 1983, two minutes from the gate at Cherry Point. He came to it the long way: the Navy, the carnivals, the Long Beach Pike in the seventies alongside Doug “The Thug” Stinnett and Greg James, then a stretch working for Zeke Owen in Jacksonville. Zeke lent him the money for the shop and told him where to put it. Jeff paid it back in two months and never left. More of Jeff’s story is at Tedder Family Tattooing.
Lauren grew up in the building. Born at the hospital in Morehead City and raised in Havelock, she worked the counter and the long hours of a street shop before she ever picked up a machine. The old tattooers on the other end of Jeff’s phone were just her uncles: Zeke took her out for her first sushi, Doug “The Thug” was Doug Bug, and Tennessee Dave, Greg James, Sailor Eddie and Ernie Carafa were voices she heard every week. It was years before she worked out that the rest of the tattoo world knew their names too.
Dave met Lauren at a tattoo convention in 2013, and Jeff a day or two after that. He was working out of Atlanta and traveling to tattoo, so for a while the two of them took turns making the trip and Dave worked a chair here every other month. They married in 2014, spent two years tattooing together in Corsica, and came back to Atlanta in 2016. Ask Dave about Jeff and he will tell you he loved him like a father.
When Jeff got sick in early 2018 they came home to Havelock to see him through his appointments. He passed on October 19, 2018, and Dave and Lauren have run the shop full time since. They remodeled the inside that year and repainted the whole outside in 2020, with Dave’s old friend Cabot down for the month of June to help. Cabot had been visiting since 2015; while the three of them were up ladders, a friend brought a tattooer named G by to say hello, and that is how Cabot met It’s Glitter. Cabot came on full time not long after, G followed after a couple of guest spots, and those are the four of us you will find here now.
Come see us
The four of us are in and out on different days, so ask at the desk who is in, or send your idea on the tattoo request form and the right tattooer will get back to you. Open seven days a week, 12 to 7, walk-ins every day, flash on the walls, and a FAQ that answers the pricing and deposit questions before you have to ask them.
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