Friends open H-Valley Suites
The suites are welcoming aestheticians, as well as facial, waxing and massage businesses.
Smiley explained they are not catering to hair and nail business because they already are flanked by hair and nail businesses.
“That wasn’t our target anyway,” she said. “We wanted to do aesthetician services.”
“(Customers) can come right in this little strip mall and get beautified any way they want,” Elmore said.
“We’re ready now (to lease) now that we have our sign up,” Smiley added. “Our goal is to take the month of June and interview people and get them in.”
For Smiley, she recalled she was getting her lashes done in a salon suite similar to hers and thought, “I could do this.’
“I called Leslie, and she said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to do that with you,’ Smiley related. “We looked around at two or three different places, and they weren’t right.”
But the catalyst came when she was called into the corporate office of her employer, FirstBank.
“I thought I was in trouble,” she recalled. “But they said, ‘We’re very sorry, but we’re closing seven branches, and your branch is one of them.
“I went home and my husband said, ‘This is your opportunity to do a lash lounge,’” said Smiley, who lives off Cedar Bluff Road. “Well, there’s my sign. It’s time to go.”
Knowing one another for about 16 years, Elmore said she and Smiley met because their children played soccer together in middle and high school.
“I just like anything to do with getting rid of wrinkles or skin care (and) hair care,” said Elmore, who lives in Louisville, in Blount County. “I have always loved that since I was a teenager, so I thought (the salon suites) could be a successful business.”
Her husband, Scott Elmore, a contract attorney at Elmore Stone and Caffey, for whom she works, helped set up the business, which has Blink Lash & Beauty Bar as its parent company.
“So, when people come in here and need help setting up their business, he can help,” Elmore said.
“We were looking in Maryville, but it was so expensive, and my husband and I drove by here and saw the sign,” Smiley said. “It was perfect.”
When they found the location in Hardin Valley, “Hardin Valley’s growing like crazy, so we thought this would be a great location,” she said.
For more information about the suites, call 865-207-2250.
