After recently opening at The Well, downtown Toronto’s massive mixed-use development, the upscale tattoo and body piercing studio Steel N Ink has secured a deal to open later this year at the huge new Royalmount project in Montreal.
The idea for Jamie Randolph’s Steel N Ink business began years ago when he took a summer job with a family friend in Sauble Beach, near Owen Sound, Ontario.
The first location opened in Sauble Beach in 2005 and today it has 15 locations operating.
Randolph said The Well is one of the biggest projects in Canada and the location is excellent.
“It’s going to be a focal point of Toronto shopping and just tourists visiting, right in the centre of it all,” he said.
“We’re looking to expand to other provinces. I’m a born and raised Montrealer. So Royalmount is a bit of a homecoming for me. When I saw the Royalmount project was coming along and almost ready to open, it was something I couldn’t pass up. It’s a great opportunity for Steel N Ink to be in a centre of that class and I’m very happy to be there.”
Randolph said the expected grand opening of the Royalmount location is August 24.
“We are thrilled that Steel N Ink has joined the roster of category leading brands at Royalmount. They are proven leaders in their field and we believe they will meaningfully enhance the service offering at Royalmount,” said Michael Stroll, Vice-President of Leasing for developer Carbonleo of the massive Montreal project.
Randolph said The Well location is close to 1,200 square feet while Royalmount will be about 1,000 square feet.
“The body art industry is really just an extension of the beauty industry and that’s going strong for the last couple of years. We’re just kind of joining that,” he said.
“We’ve been at it here for 18 years. We’ve been pushing the boundaries of the industry. It’s gotten broader and broader. More and more people are getting tattoos, piercings and it’s great to see.”
Besides its base in Ontario, the company also has two locations in Winnipeg. It’s in CF Polo Park and recently opened a new location in Kildonan Crossing.
“We’re going to keep it going. Keep expanding. Canada’s a big country. There’s a lot of places to cover. We’re looking forward to continuing,” said Randolph.
He said about 1,200 square feet is the ideal space for a typical store.
“We’re looking for high traffic locations, A-Class centres. We want to be in very nice centres. We want to be in prestigious areas,” added Randolph.
“We recently came out with an apparel line. It’s designs from our tattoo artists and we’ve printed them on some clothing that we now sell in the stores. These are limited edition type items.”
When Randolph was 17 years old he went to Sauble Beach to work in a summer job in the seasonal beach town. He went to work for a family friend, who owned a body piercing and T-shirt store. Randolph worked there and then bought it in 2005 and made it a tattoo studio as well.
“I started in Sauble Beach and everyone always said to me ‘who would get a tattoo on vacation?’. You know it’s just people. When you have a large crowd of people you have traffic. It’s very inviting. People come in and everyone’s thinking of doing a tattoo but a lot of people don’t go out of their way to get it done and other studios kind of make it hard to book in and they’re in certain parts of towns,” said Randolph in a previous Retail Insider story.
