Lindsay Tratz
Hair care professionals are used to dealing with the angst of clients growing their hair out. But stylists Lyndsy Showers and Nicole Nilson recently experienced some growing pains of their own — positive ones — when their business, Bang Salon, in Madison’s Bay Creek neighborhood, outgrew its original space.
For years, Showers and Nilson worked together at an established Madison salon and tossed around the idea of striking out on their own. “We both really wanted to work for ourselves, to be able to make our own hours,” says Showers. “We didn’t want to work every weekend anymore. Not even every other weekend.”
But their entrepreneurial plans remained a pipe dream until the spring of 2012, when Nilson spied a quaint 400-square-foot space on Lakeside Street. “We both fell in love with the location,” says Showers.
They opened in August of that year and soon began seeing a steady stream of clients, excited to have a salon within walking distance. “We see lots of families, of course,” says Nilson (the salon is across the street from Franklin Elementary School), “but the area has lots of grad students and young professionals who work for the hospitals, too.”
Lindsay Tratz
The neighborhood has been so good for business, in fact, that less than three years after opening, the partners expanded to a new space just down the block, doubling the size of the salon.
Bang 2.0, which opened its bright red door in February at 330 W. Lakeside St., boasts a clean white paint palette, skylights and glass block walls that afford lots of natural light (“essential for good hair coloring,” says Nilson). “Eight hundred square feet is still pretty small,” Showers says with a smile, “but we really appreciate the challenges of minimalism.”
The proprietors continue a streamlined approach when it comes to product lines, carrying only label.m and Schwartzkopf Professional. They also sell a selection of hair care accessories and earrings from artist Tami Reschke, who ran the Bohemian Bauble, a gift shop that was formerly right down the street.
The fashion-forward salon continues to grow. This past July, Bang added a third stylist, Jennifer McGowan, to the roster. But the salon’s fourth chair, which Showers and Nilson optimistically installed during construction, remains unfilled. “We’ll know when the time is right to expand,” says Nilson. “It’s kind of like going from long hair to a pixie. You need to think carefully about the best time to make a change.”
330 W. Lakeside St., 608-561-2264, bangmadison.com, 10 am-7 pm Tues.-Fri., by appt. Sat.
