After 13 years, the Lower Haight's On Mars Salon will close its doors for good this Saturday. Loyal customers have been flooding stylists' appointment calendars since they got wind of the news, and the salon will be going full steam through the remainder of the week, until closing up shop at 6pm on February 27th.
To owner Sherri Wheeler, who's lived in the neighborhood on and off for the past 20 years, the decision to close her business was a matter of simple economics: "We've been priced out of the market," she told us.
Since opening over a decade ago, her landlord has steadily increased rent by seven percent per year—the maximum amount allowed for commercial spaces, Wheeler said. Over the years, some stylists (all of whom are independent contractors) have had to move to other salons with more affordable prices to rent their chairs. Others have moved out of the city altogether as a result of rising costs of living.
"It becomes a tipping point of outgoing expenses being more than what's coming in," said Wheeler. "We couldn't raise our prices as quickly as costs were rising."
Most haircuts would average about $70, and the average total service price would usually run $150, according to Wheeler.
"Most of our clients are in the neighborhood, so we tried to keep it reasonable," she added. "We don't have a large tech clientele, mostly people who have been here for a while, so we tried to keep prices down."
She also told us that the fact that competition in the neighborhood, which has a high concentration of hair salons, was not a factor in the closure. "Thankfully, although there are a lot [of salons] around here, everybody's pretty cool with each other. We help each other out, like if we can't get someone in, we'll refer them somewhere else," said Wheeler."
Wheeler first started cutting hair 27 years ago at salon called Mairerua, up the street at Haight and Scott. She and five friends from there eventually left to open On Mars at 201 Fillmore, the same location that it occupies today, in March of 2003. Wheeler said that her husband actually came up with the name.
"He was future tripping at the time and was into the movie Blade Runner. He thought it would be cool if you opened a salon where if someone asked somebody where they got their hair cut, they could reply 'on Mars'," said Wheeler.
Wheeler told us that all of the stylists have future employment lined up, and that one of them will actually be moving to Japan. As for her, she will be returning to her native upstate New York to work in a salon and do some consulting work.
She says that she does not know what the landlord plans to do with the space next. With the Lower Haight's current glut of retail vacancies, we'll be keeping a close eye on what might be next for the store.
To close things out, On Mars Salon will be having a fire sale on Sunday afternoon, with the aim to liquidate everything in the shop. It will will be open from 10am "until it's all gone," so if you are looking to score some hairstyling equipment, this is probably how you should be spending your afternoon.
As far as parting words go, Wheeler's were simple: "It's been a good run," she said.
