DECEMBER 17, 2009 ISSUE
Haircut 101: 20 Years of Styling High Country Hair
John Mena’s salon, Haircut 101, is celebrating 20 years in Boone this month. Photo by Sam Calhoun
John Mena almost lost a finger to a table saw when he was building furniture more than 20 years ago. It was then that he changed to his current career.
Hair in the Hair Country might not be as professionally colored or styled without that almost-accident.
Mena’s salon, Haircut 101, is celebrating 20 years in Boone this month. The modern-looking shop, where plenty of women and men have sat for stylings, is located at 174 South Depot Street in downtown Boone.
“I’m surprised it’s 20 years. It feels like it was just yesterday,” Mena said earlier this week as his employees worked inside the building. “Time seems to have flown by.”
That length of time, though, can be easily cataloged through the memories Mena has made with customers over the years.
He has photos of kids getting their first hair cut in his shop and photos of kids who grew up who still frequent his salon—he’s even done hair for some of their weddings.
Conversations with someone in his chair, which is located in the back of the studio, can easily begin with “remember when.”
When he started, he was in a 900-square foot space and had only one assistant.
“It was the smallest of the small businesses that you can make,” he said.
It grew, though, as customers found out about his shop. Soon, he needed more space.
The shop does everything from a simple cut to coloring, facials, conditioning treatments and make-up.
A fire destroyed his first downtown shop, which was located in the space now used as Footsloggers Paddle Shop, in June 1996. Five months later, he opened the new 1,800 square feet space down the street.
“Downtown Boone has been great to me for 20 years. I’ve enjoyed it immensely,” he said.
Mena grew up with stylists in his family, as his grandmother, great uncle and uncle also worked in salons. He saw his uncle’s salon on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles when he was in elementary school and became mesmerized by the idea of working at one.
Mena now has 10 employees and has used part-time workers from ASU for years. He once employed 15 people when he owned a massage studio next door.
“We figured we’d just concentrate on hair and skin instead of trying to do the whole gambit,” Mena said.
He moved to Boone from South Florida with business associate and friend Nelson Garcia—now the owner of Nelson’s Salon on Appalachian Street.
They were in business together with a couple of silent investors and when that working relationship broke apart, Mena decided to go it alone.
The self-proclaimed Army brat had found a home after years and years of moving around.
“Once I got here it just felt like home,” Mena said. “I didn’t really want to come up here from South Florida, but I was running crazy down there [in the late 1980s]. It is so much more laid back and easy going here.”
Mena’s son, Corey, is at Watauga High School and hopes to attend ASU, Mena said, so the stylist’s time in Boone will likely continue for more years.
Mena didn’t even intend to start his own place when he arrived in Boone.
“There were no saloons that I would have felt comfortable working at after working in some really high-end saloons down in Florida, Virginia Beach and Myrtle Beach,” Mena said.
Twenty years later and there are plenty of patrons who are happy that Mena found a home in Boone.
Haircut 101 is located at 174 South Depot Street in Boone. Haircut 101 is open from Monday to Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, call 828-262-3324.
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