> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.roeinewyork.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Hamptons Season 2026 Is a Wrap: Part Two - URL: https://www.roeinewyork.com/hamptons-season-2026-is-a-wrap-part-two/ - Published: 2026-09-14T21:55:57.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-14T21:55:57.000Z - Author: Roei Cohen Getting the salon ready to open is very hard, but compared with managing it throughout the season, opening is actually the easy part. Opening the Hamptons salon each year is almost like opening a new business. You have to think about everything before anything happens, including building, designing, planning, hiring, strategizing, setting expectations, and hoping for the best. Managing it, sustaining it, making it a place where clients want to come and employees want to work, and ensuring it remains profitable while the cost of everything increases faster than I can write these words, is the real challenge. When you run a salon, as with any business, it is never smooth sailing on a calm sea. There is always something happening, especially when you manage talent. One day, a stylist may be having a difficult day and need everything done a certain way; another day, every client is running late, one after another. There are booking confusions, last-minute clients, or hair extensions left behind in the city, three hours away, when the client is arriving today. Add to the mix longstanding clients who request last-minute home services and have counted on you for years, making it very difficult to refuse them, and the question becomes: How do we make it all work? In Part One, I wrote about being prepared, and while we prepare for most scenarios, there is always something you cannot anticipate, which means you have to adjust. The team must remain calm, take a moment to evaluate the problem, and think together about how we can solve it. One of the safeguards I put in place is having an extra stylist who can help with multiple services but is not open for regular booking. This gives us the flexibility to accommodate last-minute house calls, support the existing team, and say yes to the client who forgot to book a blow-dry after their color appointment. This is also why we have an employee house in the Hamptons. It allows team members to spend more time there, giving us greater flexibility to accommodate clients who need appointments before or after our regular hours. I also keep a limited backup inventory of items that cannot easily be replaced at the last minute, including hair extensions and keratin products. But what do you do when the issue is quite literally in God’s hands, when it is raining, and I mean pouring, but our clients do not want to cancel even when free cancellation is offered? I do not think any salon owner or manager operating an indoor-outdoor salon can be fully prepared for that. We do, however, manage to utilize every piece of dry real estate in the salon, even if it means placing chairs literally in the center of the room. The key is that we make it happen, and what could easily become a stressful experience for our clients turns into a moment of laughter and appreciation for a resilient salon that comes through even in the most challenging weather. How does the salon remain consistently busy? The answer is simple: talent first, and honest communication second. We send consistent emails to our clients, sharing news and updates about the salon, stylists’ schedules and time off, new features, and anything else we believe will help them plan their visits. I personally think announcing employees’ time off is very important because it shows our clients that we care about helping them see their favorite stylist, so we try to notify them at least four weeks in advance. Of course, we can always accommodate them with one of our other talented colorists or stylists, but our clients appreciate the fact that we share this information and communicate with them. All these safeguards are great to have, but they also consume time and money. If you run any business with employees, you know that overhead is often your largest expense. Add to that the extra hours needed to accommodate early or late clients, long-distance travel, purchasing a full salon inventory in advance, renting an employee house in one of New York’s hottest summer real estate markets, and the cost of cars and gas, and the list goes on and on. To keep everything under control and maintain a budget, every expense has to be closely monitored throughout the season. We conduct inventory every week, checking how much remains of each item and ordering only what is needed to return us to our starting level. Hair color is a major expense, so we keep the lids from every box used and replace each one on a one-to-one basis, which helps us avoid carrying unnecessary inventory. During the final few weeks of the season, we stop adding inventory beyond the basics and begin promoting the existing retail products so we can sell through as much as possible before closing. Retail is an important source of revenue, but that side of the business deserves a separate post of its own. There is also a service fee applied only in the Hamptons, and it is a necessary one. Running a salon is already very expensive, and the cost becomes even greater when the location is three to five hours away from where team members live and they have to travel there daily or several times a week to accommodate clients. All of this is why it is so important to have a strong team of people working toward the same goal: creating a community of loyal clients, accommodating them and meeting them where they are, while providing the highest-quality services possible. When the season ends, it is time to close everything, stack it, protect it, take inventory, and log what remains. A few weeks after closing, I travel back with a team to pack up the salon and bring all the leftover color and products to New York, where we integrate them into the inventory there. We then winterize the space, lock the door, and I do not see it again until after New Year’s Day, when the entire process begins all over again. To conclude, opening any business is challenging, but compared with sustaining it, opening is the easier part. Give someone a million dollars and they can open a beautiful spa, but what they do with it next, how they hire, how they manage, and how they take care of their customers will determine whether that million dollars was money well spent or a bad investment. I would absolutely love to hear about your experience when it comes to opening and sustaining a business.