The Bronx

Jeffrey Cohen was born on November 6, 1947, in the Bronx, New York. He grew up on those streets the way a lot of kids did in that era: scrappy, resourceful, and aware that the world didn’t owe you anything. The Bronx shaped him before anything else did.

He joined the Navy, the way young men from neighborhoods like his often did when the options were limited and the draft was real. The military took him out of New York and showed him the rest of the country. It also brought him to North Carolina, though it would be years before he stayed.

The Road to Tattooing

Before tattooing, Jeff worked at Pike in Long Beach, California. He spent time in Chicago. He worked in New York City. He moved through jobs and cities the way someone does when they haven’t found the thing that fits yet. Tattooing found him somewhere along the way, and once it did, the rest of the story wrote itself.

In 1983, Jeff opened The Custom Tattoo Company in Havelock, North Carolina, directly across the street from the gates of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. The location was deliberate. Marines coming and going, young service members looking for their first tattoo or their tenth. The shop became a fixture, as much a part of the base culture as the barracks and the PX.

Three Decades

Jeff ran The Custom Tattoo Company for over three decades. He wasn’t chasing trends or building a brand. He was running a shop, the way shop owners did before social media turned tattooing into a spectator sport. Walk-ins were welcome. The flash was on the wall. The work got done.

He raised a family in and around that shop. His daughter Lauren grew up watching him work, absorbing the culture of tattooing before she was old enough to understand what it meant. His son-in-law Dave Tedder would eventually join him, bringing a new generation of skill and ambition into the same space Jeff had built from nothing.

Legacy

Jeff Cohen passed away on October 19, 2018. He was 70 years old.

What he left behind was more than a business. The Custom Tattoo Company was a place, a reputation, and a standard. The family he raised in that shop now runs it. The craft he practiced is carried forward by the people he taught, directly and by example.

The story of Tedder Family Tattooing starts with Jeff. Everything that followed, the awards, the art, the next generation, all of it traces back to a shop across from Cherry Point and the man who opened the door.