The owner of House of Braids says expanding into Midtown Plaza has helped the long-running Saskatoon business grow, despite past challenges with relocation and theft.
Ngone Dione, who founded House of Braids in 1997 after moving from Montreal, said she opened the Midtown location a little over two years ago. It is the newest of her four Saskatoon stores, which include shops on Second Avenue, Confederation Mall and Cloud Nine.
She said she originally operated a small space in Confederation Mall for several years before opening a larger store there, but the expansion brought difficulties.
“We start having problems when we opened that big location. Then, it was a lot of shoplifting coming,” she said. The issues led her to downsize back into a smaller space.
Dione said she later discovered the vacant Midtown unit she now occupies.
“I’m like, Oh, let me see if I can rent this place to put my stuff here, and then see how it goes,” she said. After contacting mall management, she opened the location within three weeks.
The move allowed her to expand further. When a neighbouring salon closed, she took over the space, connected it to her existing store and created an area focused on clients experiencing hair loss.
“We opened that to be like a wig store, you know, for people with cancer, hair problems and stuff like that,” she said.
Although she later returned to a smaller unit when the lease expired, Dione said she remains satisfied with Midtown.
“So far it is good. I don’t mind. I really like the Midtown location,” she said.
Dione said House of Braids began with braiding and extensions, drawing on her training in Montreal and her observation that Saskatoon needed a specialized service. She said regulatory limits in Saskatchewan initially restricted her to braiding because she had not studied locally.
“Then I decided to go back to school,” she said, completing her training at MC College in 2007.
“We do everything, everything from extensions to cut to colour,” she said, noting she also works with people who have hair loss.
Dione said she has considered expanding to other cities, including Calgary, where some clients have encouraged her to open a location. But she said staffing remains a concern.
“My fear is not having somebody that can run it properly,” she said, adding she once tried operating a store in Prince Albert but found it difficult to manage from afar.
Despite those challenges, she said she is open to future growth. “Oh, yes, for sure,” she said of the idea of more locations, adding she has thought about franchising.
More from Retail Insider:
- Twisted Goods owner Angelica Fehr looks to future expansion
- Saskatoon’s Midtown shopping centre experiences strong year of leasing activity (Photos)
