NoPa residents may have spotted a hair salon sprout up seemingly overnight on McAllister & Lyon streets. And that’s more or less what happened when Tatum Taylor, a NoPa resident and hairstylist, was strolling down her street and noticed the long-shuttered corner unit at 1900 McAllister was for rent.
Taylor had been looking for a space to open up shop with her colleague and former manager, Aimee Deanda, for some time, but nothing had felt quite right. "We wanted it to be the perfect place," says Deanda. “Something very homey, something everyone was comfortable in.” At first, she couldn’t picture how Taylor could possibly transform a box-filled storage space into the kind of salon the two had dreamed about. “When she sent me the pictures, I said, ‘I don’t have a vision but I’m just going to trust you.’”
Her faith paid off with a grand opening in March. In just five weekends, Taylor had managed to create a cozy yet chic two-chair salon she named Crown.
With the front door always ajar, fresh cut flowers, and champagne, Crown is just the respite from the kind of big, hectic salons in which its founders started their careers. “We want to be really respectful of downtime,” says Taylor. “I feel like everyone in this town goes, goes, goes, so when you have that 30 minutes to just chill, that is really important to both of us.”
The two hold the same philosophy when it comes to styling hair. “It’s not about us and our ego. It’s about creating looks for our clients’ lifestyles that are practical,” says Taylor. Client consultation is key component of Crown’s process. “We have a consultation every single time,” says Deanda. “We revisit. We keep very detailed notes on what we did so we can tweak anything. We go over what works not only for our clients’ lifestyles but also for their skin tone and face shape—that makes them very happy.”
Education is also core to Crown’s approach. “We’ve been in the field for a long time, but it’s so important to us to keep learning new trends and treatments,” says Deanda. Clients can try her agave smoothing treatment, while Taylor is hot on the American Wave (“It’s a new technique… we don’t use the P-word [perm], but it gives a beachy texture to stick-straight hair like mine.") Minimizing chemical damage is a top priority for both stylists, who pride themselves on bringing healthier techniques and products to their clients’ hair care.
“I’ve always wanted to be the neighborhood salon,” says Taylor. “While we were setting up every weekend, neighbors would come by and offer to get us coffee or ask what it our space going to be. It’s the best feeling.”
Prior to Crown, Taylor opened two salons in her former hometown of Denver, but “I was always a little ahead of my time.” The timing finally feels right in NoPa. “This neighborhood has changed so much in the past five years I’ve been here,” she says. “It feels like a community now.”
Crown is open from 11am to 7pm Tuesday through Thursday, 8am to 4pm Friday and Saturday, and is closed on Sundays and Mondays.
