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Downtown hair salon owner adapts to changes after reopening

Downtown Hair Lounge
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With restrictions lifting and businesses opening their doors again, they're adapting to the new changes - including Downtown Hair Lounge, which opened its doors a few weeks ago.

Tyler McGee took over the salon a little over a year ago, but cutting hair is not new.

"For most of my adult life, cutting hair has been how I provided for myself and my family, especially when I was a young single mom," McGee said. "I put all my eggs in the hair basket for the most part, so knowing that you’re going to be losing this income, it’s scary."

When stay-at-home orders were enforced, her salon, like many, took a hit.

"Lots of thousands of dollars, we'll just say that," McGee said. "I mean, you’re figuring six weeks of income, so that’s a lot. We’re a busy salon and it's not just me. We have other stylists here who are depending on that income as well."

Slowly, as businesses are starting to come back online, changes were implemented at the salon, including putting on hand sanitizer as soon as clients walk in, wearing face masks and wiping down the stations after each use.

"When you are licensed to touch the public, sanitation is huge, but we are literally spraying everything down," McGee said. "We really spaced our appointments out so that there’s really not any reason for people to be waiting. Because that gives us time to clean everything, get ready for the next customer and have everything clean and ready for them when they come in."

McGee wasn't sure what to expect when the salon opened back up again.

"I think that was another fear, you know, walking into this are people going to be too scared to come out and open our doors and is anybody going to come," she said.

However, clients didn't hesitate to call in and schedule their next appointments. They're currently staying busy and booked.

"People just rallied around us and have just been so supportive and so generous and it’s been just a blessing," McGee said.

Now, they're going on week three, and while the past several weeks caused a minor setback for the new owner, she's staying optimistic.

"There's light at the end of the tunnel," she said.

Since their reopen, they've done more than 140 appointments. They usually average roughly 30-40 appointments weekly, which McGee says is right on track.