‘Four days open is all I can manage’
A HAIR salon owner can only afford to open four days a week due to soaring costs – and says if she had known, she would not have even bought the shop.
Dennie Smith, 61, took over Croydon-based salon Vintage 62 in 2015.
The business owner, who has worked in the hair industry for 40 years, said it had been a life-long dream.
She and husband Graham Smith, 60, sold their home of 23 years so they could afford to lease the salon.
But Covid left them on their knees – and in July 2020, they decided to close on Mondays to reduce outgoing costs.
Stress
Now they have been forced to close on Tuesdays as well in a bid to reduce costs even further and ensure they get booked up.
Dennie, originally from Croydon, south-east London, said: “I’m absolutely gutted. Running a business is hard enough as it is.
“Hopefully, once we’re shut on Tuesdays, it’ll mean the other days will be busier – we really can’t afford to have the heating on when there’s only one customer in.
“Stock prices have gone up – I cancelled a flower subscription, a magazine subscription and the window cleaner only comes once a month now.”
The mum of four went on: “If you had told me eight years on I would only be open four days a week, I wouldn’t have taken it over.
“Had I had a magic ball back then, I wouldn’t have had this stress.
“If I speak to the other shop owners on the street, they’re all in the same boat
– it is very sad. I could literally sit and scream thinking about it.
“We had to move older people with regular Tuesday bookings to other days.”
A survey by Uswitch has revealed that more than a quarter of hairdressers are thinking of closing their sites or scaling back their salon space, due to eyewatering energy costs.