Linda Unlocks the Secret to Beautiful Hair

Every day’s a good hair day at Linda’s Lock Shoppe. Linda Wall is the proprietor of her store located at 542 East 200th Street in Euclid. She has a large and loyal following of 20 years.

After beauty school, she worked for others in the business for eight years. At that point in her life she knew it was time to be her own boss. She bought a salon and equipment on a tiny budget at a store on East 156th Street in Cleveland. Eventually she moved to her present shop and has enjoyed a prosperous business ever since. Her little shop is a delight to visit, as she herself is a delightful woman.

What is her philosophy of making a salon grow? It’s quite simple: the cardinal rule is giving the customers what they ask for, not what she might like to do for them. That approach has served her well.

Approximately one fourth of her customers are male. She says “the men talk and gossip just as much as the women do, if not more.” She sees herself as someone between a bartender and a priest because of how much interesting personal information they share with her.

Linda says “that haircuts and colors are the basis for a good hairdo. It is much harder to fix a bad color job than it is to get it right the first time.” It’s also hard to give a customer a requested style when the customer doesn’t have enough hair or the right type of hair to make it work. Linda prefers working by herself rather than employing others. The down side of this solitary arrangement is that it’s hard to take a day off.

What Linda likes best about her job is meeting so many people that have turned out to be friends. She has 25 to 30 regulars every we and on a busy day she can serve 10 people.  What she likes least is the toll her work takes on her feet. She recently had to close the shop for two and one half months for foot surgery. That’s when she realized how much she missed her customers, and they her.

Linda has a satisfying personal life. She’s been married to Bob Wall for 31 years. He is a receiver at a Giant Eagle store as well as a union steward. She has two adult sons, Bobby, 29, and Kyle, 24. Her passions include pets (especially border collies), gardening, flower arranging, dominoes, and Mexican food. Her favorite restaurant is Abuelos in Highland Hills.

The store is open Wednesday through Saturday. Cuts start at $18 and she can be reached at (216) 481-6070 for appointments. In this age of chain stores and high employee turnover, Linda’s Lock Shoppe is a real breath of fresh (h)air.

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Volume 1, Issue 6, Posted 7:25 AM, 09.17.2010