Build-out is six weeks behind and I'm paying rent on an empty salon

Keisha Brown· Opening a four-chair natural hair salon; lease signed, build-out underway· Registered, Beauty & Personal Care·1w

Signed the lease in June for a four chair natural hair salon. The plan was to open in September. It's now clear that isn't happening, and every week of delay is a rent payment on a room nobody is working in.

The specific hold-up is electrical. The building is older than I am and the panel couldn't carry four stations plus dryers plus the washer. My contractor flagged it early, to his credit, but the upgrade needed a permit, the permit needed a licensed electrician's drawing, and the whole thing added about five weeks and a number I don't want to type.

I negotiated two months of free rent for build-out, which I was proud of at the time and which I've now used up. My original budget had a small contingency. That's gone too.

What I want to know from people who've opened a physical space: did you find any work for the room before you could legally operate in it? I have clients asking when I open and I keep saying soon. And for anyone who's been here, how did you decide whether to open with two chairs working rather than wait for all four?

4 replies

Greg Foster· Open·1w

Opened three months ago and my build-out ran over too, so first: the free rent you negotiated wasn't wasted, it just wasn't enough, and nobody's first one is. What I'd do right now is go back to the landlord. An empty unit helps him no more than it helps you, and mine gave me three extra weeks at half rent when I showed him the permit paperwork proving the delay was the building's panel and not me dithering.

Bring the documents. Landlords respond to evidence of a real cause far better than to a request for a favour.

Keisha Brown· Registered·1w

I hadn't even considered going back to him. I assumed the two months was the deal and that was that. I've got the permit application, the contractor's note and the inspection date, so I'll put it in an email tonight rather than a phone call, so it's all in one place. Worst case he says no and I'm exactly where I already am.

Jen Okafor· Open·1w

I opened with half the equipment I'd planned on and it was the right call, but only because I was honest about it. Two chairs working isn't a failure, it's a soft open, and people are generous about a soft open in a way they are not about a place that feels unfinished with no explanation.

Where I'd be careful is booking four chairs worth of clients into two chairs and running late all day. First impressions on wait times are brutal and they stick. Open at the capacity you've actually got, and tell people the other two are coming.

Dana Kowalski· Open·1w

HR side of this, and it's the bit that bites people in your exact situation. If you have stylists lined up for September, talk to them this week rather than when you know the new date. People who've given notice somewhere else and then sit for six weeks with no income don't sit for six weeks. They take something else, and you reopen the hiring search on top of everything else.

Even an honest we're looking at November and here's why will keep most of them. Silence is what loses them.

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