Exploring Life & Business with Christopher Salazar of Salazar’s Barbershop

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Salazar.

Hi Christopher, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was first introduced to cutting hair my sophomore year at Hickman County High School in Centerville, TN. The school offered a cosmetology course, and the main reason I joined was because my girlfriend, at the time, was enrolled in the program. I quickly found out I had a knack for it, but after three years of doing cosmetology, I knew I did not want to do women’s hair. After graduation, I moved to Nashville. I worked a lot of different jobs such as retail, factory work at Nissan, sales at AT&T, and in restaurants and catering. No matter what job I was working, I would always cut family and friends’ hair for free at my apartment. One night I came home after work to cut about 5 of my friends, they were excited and all lined up at my door. That night they all randomly paid me for their haircuts. I realized I could actually cut hair for a living and the next day, I looked into barber schools. I continued to work full-time while I went to barber school in Nashville. It took me 18 months to graduate. I worked at a couple of different barber shops for a few years before opening up my own barber shop called Forty Ten in Green Hills which has successfully been running for 5.5 years. I also opened up Salazar’s Barbershop in Columbia, TN December 2021.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It definitely has not been easy. I have had my fair share of struggles in the past years. Anyone opening up their first business is always hard and scary.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Salazar’s Barbershop is a family-owned and operated classic men’s barbershop. We specialize in traditional barber services: classic haircuts, beard trims, and straight razor shaves. We are known for being a very clean, professional barbershop that brings the classics and traditions into modern day.

Every Licensed Barber I hire goes through my apprenticeship to ensure our attention to detail and the quality of our craft is maintained. My goal with opening barbershops was to create a shop where the actual barber could earn a really good living and provide for their family. I really pride myself on having barbershops that are barber-owned and operated and having barbers that really care about making this a profession instead of a hustle. All of our barbers are W-2 employees with competitive commission, paid time-off, vacation days, paid holidays, and flexible scheduling. Currently, we are open Thursday through Sunday. We are Appointment Only, please book online. We accept cash only.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I mean, I think anyone who is going to open up any kind of small business is taking a huge risk. I think taking risks is how you grow. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to really push yourself. I do believe your risk taking should be calculated by weighing the pros and cons of that risk. One “risk” I recently made was switching Forty Ten Barber Studio in Nashville to Cash Only just like Salazar’s Barbershop. I saw how well Salazar’s was doing with being cash only so I decided to make the switch with our barbershop in Nashville. It all ended up working out too!

Contact Info:

• Website: salazarsbarbershop.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salazarsbarbershopcolumbia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salazarsbarbershopcolumbia/
• Other: https://www.vagaro.com/salazarsbarbershop/book-now

Image Credits
Abishai Collingsworth