Alonso Salguero spoke to The Knockturnal exclusively about the New Salon Ziba on 57th Street on Thursday, Jun 25.
What motivated you to open Ziba on 57th St.?
Well we’ve been in business now for over twenty years and I have another salon a block and a half away. So the idea was to grow. We wanted to remain relevant to the clientele that we’ve built over the years. So that’s why we decided to make a really posh environment here for our clientele. One of the things our colorists wanted were bright studios to really be able to judge color the proper way.
How is this Ziba location different from your other salons?
I originally opened Salon Ziba as a quick service concept. Twenty years ago there was no in between salon. There were only barbershops or the high end Madison Avenue salons. So I teamed up with a couple of stylists to open a very professional environment on a busy street but at a reasonable price with a quick service. In other words, we didn’t want the services to take too long and women loved that. Think about blow dry bars nowadays, we were the original blow dry bar for so many women. Of course, over the years what happened was we found talent and started building them up. But within that environment, they use to say ‘Goodbye Salon Ziba’ because they were going to Fekkai or the high-end salons where they could price themselves higher and spend more time with the client. After ten years of doing that, I decided that I could not continue to lose the people that I built. So I built a second floor in my old salon to allow my hair stylists to grow and I promoted them. I came up with the Master Stylists Program. It interesting now because I have both salons a block and a half away and I’m finding now that there are people for both locations. The other salon, even though we do cuts and color, we are always packed with blow dry appointments with woman who come in at eight o clock in the morning because they have to go to the office.
So would you say your target customers are working women?
Oh absolutely but we cater to a variety of men and women and ages. We’re very open.
What makes Ziba special?
Customer Service. We are very customer service orientated and of course we do curate very good talent. Once we find talent, we know we have to back them up and that’s the most important requirement.
