GREENFIELD — As one salon comes to an end after 60 years, another is just getting started.
All About U Family Hair Care in McKenzie Plaza has closed. Several of its former employees have gone into business together across town, where they plan to carry on the tradition of having coworkers and customers who are more like kin.
Before it was All About U Family Hair Care, the business began as Northgate Beauty Salon in 1961 in the city’s former Northgate Shopping Center at North State Street and McKenzie Road. Eventually the salon moved into a nearby home, and Lloyd Bettcher owned it when Becky Colip started working there in the 1970s. Colip bought the business after Bettcher died in 2000.
About nine years ago, Colip moved the salon to 1278 N. State St. in McKenzie Plaza. No longer near Northgate, she changed the name to All About U Family Hair Care. She closed the business on May 21.
Colip is 73 and wants to retire.
“I’ve done hair for 50-some years,” she said. “My husband has been retired for quite a while, and he wants to travel.”
Rising supply prices and the COVID-19 pandemic haven’t made it any easier to run a beauty shop, she added.
“It’s just time to let it go,” Colip said.
She admitted she won’t miss the work, but will miss those who have become part of her life for so long.
“I’ve said it over and over again all week long — I won’t miss hair, but I will miss everybody,” Colip said a couple days before closing.
They never felt like customers, she continued.
“Not clients, it’s friends and family, and that’s how it’s always been and how everybody always felt,” she said.
Three of her six former employees have started a new salon called Beauty and Grace in the former Columbia Barber Shop at 1133 W. Main St., Suite A, in Greenfield Plaza. Carrie Parker, Constance Cook and Dawn Dyer are part of the venture. They also took All About U Family Hair Care’s phone number with them — 317-462-7231.
Parker, Cook and Dyer attend Bethel Baptist Church, and their faith inspired their new salon’s name.
“We didn’t want to split,” Parker said. “We all wanted to stay together. We all chipped in and are splitting everything and going into business together.”
With their new location being a former barber shop, getting it ready didn’t have to be too extensive.
“We just had to pretty much give it a little face lift with flooring and paint and decorations a little bit,” Parker said.
Parker worked at Northgate Beauty Salon for 15 years before leaving for three, and returned after the business had transitioned to All About U Family Hair Care.
“I couldn’t be without them,” she said. “They’re my family.”
