Shelly Rewinkle has a lot of experience building things from the ground up; Grand, her first salon in Denver’s Lower Downtown, Grand’s relocation to LoHi in 2013, the addition of an in-house medical spa, and a staff of 30 people, just to mention a few.
In a highly competitive industry where around 80% of salons close within 18 months of opening, Grand Salon & MedSpa is celebrating 20 years in business this month. Grand currently resides in the Highlands neighborhood, tucked away from the hustle and impossible parking of LoHi. In fact, there’s a private parking lot right in front of the building. With large garage doors that let in beautiful natural light, state-of-the-art shampoo bowls (if you know, you know), a charming in-house boutique to shop, and the friendliest front desk staff on this side of the Mississippi, Grand Salon & MedSpa is a Denver legend in the salon scene.
Now rewind 20 years. The very first iteration of Grand Salon opened in LoDo in 2004 – and Shelly didn’t initially have much vision for the business. Actually, she was in line to one day purchase the salon where she worked as a stylist, when the owners told her they were going to lose their lease. Luckily, the commercial space next door was available so Shelly set off to buy the space and lease it to her salon employers. Within a week’s time, it turned out the owners were able to keep their current space, but Shelly’s entrepreneurial mind had already taken off.
“I was going to have this new job; I was going to be a landlord. I didn’t want to have anything to do with having a salon as a business, nor did I feel educated about it at the time,” she said. “But I talked to my mom and she said, ‘You’re ready. Do it yourself. Open up your own business.’ So I said ok, we’re just going to do this.”
Once Shelly made the decision to become a salon owner, her first project was literally building the salon from the ground up. The space that she bought was a shell – just raw cement with nothing in it. She became preoccupied with finding an architect, getting a builder, making sure the plumbing and electricity were working, everything except the actual business of running a salon.
“I was truly afraid to open a business. I graduated from high school, that was it. All of a sudden, now I’m in charge of making sure the people that work here have jobs. I was very afraid of failing.”
Shelly stopped taking any classes on the craft of hairdressing and turned her attention solely to business education. “I flew all over the country, read every book I could, picked the brains of every client I had, out of pure fear that I was going to cause disruption in these people’s lives.”
It was in those business classes that she learned the high cost to a business of employee turnover. Now the big questions and main priorities were: how do you hire good people and how do you keep them from leaving?
“We have a building of 30 now, but we started with a tight group of 5 of us,” she said. “How do you try to make the perfect business for 5 different people?”
The industry average for the career lifespan of a hairstylist is five to seven years. In contrast, nearly half of the team at Grand has been there for over ten years, including two stylists, Jessica and Rebecca, who have been on the team for all 20 years. (April Guerra is an honorary OG 🙂 )
“I wanted to walk in every day and love where I worked. I wanted to build a healthy and positive workplace. I wanted to enjoy my time in the salon – and that’s how I go about hiring. One goal is to surround myself with people who enjoy their day,” she said.
“We are always trying to find great human beings. I knew it was only my fault if I came into work and didn’t enjoy my day. If you’re the owner of your business, you can only complain about yourself. You have all the power to change it.”
“Grand Salon has always had a passion to employ people with similar values, not to mention talent and professionalism. Shelly has always provided her employees with the best of everything: health benefits, education and vacation."
That philosophy has gone a long way in preventing employee turnover, and creating an environment where relationships can flourish.
Laura Thompson has been a stylist at Grand for 16 years and credits strong working relationships for the success of the salon overall. “We love to learn from each other, and therefore are always evolving together. Guests notice our relationships and that we enjoy sharing our space together. That’s why people like coming back,” she said.
Corey Roberts and Megan Nichols, stylists at Grand for 13 and 12 years respectively, both agree that the camaraderie and life-long friendships built between coworkers and guests are what make Grand such a special place to work.
Grand also offers an Associate Program, designed to train new cosmetology graduates to build strong and successful careers right from the start.
“We try to make it the perfect job for every person, within our ability. We can teach anyone what they need to learn to be successful, but if they’re a good person and they seem like they’ll work well as a team, on our team, that’s all we really need. We’ve worked really hard to find personalities that work well together.”
Shelly has built a company of 20 service providers and an amazing management team across the salon and MedSpa, but she also believes in not pushing anything too far that doesn’t feel like a natural fit, and instead allowing opportunities to come to her.
For example, when Grand originally moved to its current location on Kalamath St, they only offered hair services. However, the person who was working at the front desk was going to school to be an esthetician.
“That person seemed exceptional in what they were doing at the front desk, and that more than likely, if she studied skincare, she would be excellent in that as well. So we asked her when she graduated, if she would like to start skin here,” said Shelly.
That person was Stacey Lohmar, who is coming up on her 11th Grand anniversary, and that’s when Shelly built the first spa room at Grand.
A few years later, Shelly was again approached with an opportunity to expand her single room spa into a three-room medical spa, offering injectables like Botox and fillers, by a registered nurse looking for a place to work that was closer to home. Shelly welcomed Carrie Meis to the team and built two more spa rooms over the course of just two weeks, officially evolving Grand Salon to Grand Salon & MedSpa.
Allowing the business to evolve freely, based on the needs and skills of the staff, is the type of flexibility that has ensured a healthy business spanning two decades. Grand survived COVID, a challenge Shelly feels they navigated really well. “The biggest phrase out of COVID was, ‘how do we pivot?’ We focused on going with the flow and asking every single day, how do we need to shift and change today?”
Grand is constantly reimagining how they can better serve their guests. New services include lash lifts and brow laminations, the boutique is now offering permanent jewelry, guests can shop online 24/7 for retail products on the Grand Shopify store, and Shelly’s entrepreneurial spirit hasn’t waned one bit.
Twenty years later, she definitely has more of a vision for the future of her business.
“I very much want this to be an employee-owned company,” she said. With two decades of experience building something so grand from scratch, Shelly wants to teach her employees how to build their own version. “I opened a business absolutely out of fear… [but now] how do we bring on partners, and how do we make this business grow?”
Perhaps multiple locations are the future for Grand Salon & MedSpa, perhaps something else entirely. One thing you can count on is that the team at Grand will continue to expand and collaborate to maintain its legacy: not good, not great, but grand.
Bekah is a Colorado native with a passion for helping others look and feel their best. She spent 8 years working behind the chair as a hairstylist in Boulder before she moved to Denver. She then worked in the bridal sphere before she came to Grand Salon & Medspa managing the front desk/guest relations.
When she’s not helping guests have the best experience possible at Grand, you can find her exploring a new coffee shop or happy hour, or at home with her two cats Brad and Leo. Follow @bekahgalhair
