A men’s salon chain that invites its clientele to “arrive rusty and leave gleaming” will open in Honolulu, likely in the second half of next year, said franchisee Rebecca Gustafson. Announcement of the exact location is pending the lease signing. Kelli Yanagawa Wilinski, vice president of the Retail Services Group of Colliers International, is representing the Gustafsons in the deal.
The salon chain is named Eighteen Eight, a reference to the process of adding 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel to steel to make the steel perform better by eliminating its tendency to oxidize and rust.
Rebecca Gustafson and her husband, Brian, were seeking a franchise opportunity and liked what they found with Eighteen Eight, she said. “It’s an exciting and fun thing to bring here to Hawaii, and we’re really looking forward to it,” she said.
Rebecca Gustafson is a former pharmaceutical sales representative who worked her way up to management and who has spent recent years as a stay-at-home mother. Brian Gustafson sells medical devices and has worked in medical outside sales for close to two decades, she said. He will continue his career for now, while she takes the lead on the new business, she said.
The plan for the first location, the first of their commitment to open three shops, is to have 10 to 11 stations, which are semiprivate and where most of the salon’s services can be offered so customers don’t have to move from station to station, as is common in women’s salons.
At a single station, customers “will be able to get their hair cut, to waxing, to a straight razor shave, hair coloring” and so on, she said. The Gustafsons are considering offering pedicures, which would require a client to go to a different station. The additional shops to be built within three to five years likely will be a little smaller.
Services at 18/8 include haircuts and styling, face treatments, scalp treatments, nail treatments, shaves, waxing, coloring services and groom or bachelor party packages at which beer is offered. That means among the permits the salon will need will be a liquor license.
Classic cuts, which are the entry-level haircut, could start in the mid- to upper $40 range, Rebecca Gustafson estimated, with additional services adding to the price, though memberships that include special pricing also are offered. Prices for everything vary by location.
The entry of a franchised men’s salon into the Honolulu market, with built-in plans for expansion, ramps up the competition for traditional mom-and-pop barbershops, as well as for the more trendy and also upscale Mojo Barbershop, which is a local, female-owned business.
Owner Marian Lee, who opened the first Mojo Barbershop and Social Club at 1157 Bethel St. in late 2011 and won an Outstanding Minority-Owned Small Business award from SCORE last year, announced in TheBuzz in October that it would be expanding into part of the historic McCully Chop Suey building this month, with a grand opening set for early December.
On the Net » eighteeneight.com
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
