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Guy Quenneville
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Equal opportunity barbershop
Gary's Inn Barber Shop, located in Centre Square Mall, made a big change to its operation in the final months of 2007: it started offering haircuts for women.
Previously, the longstanding barbershop - a Yellowknife institution for 60 years - only cut men's hair.
"It's great," said Char Berube, an employee with the shop.
"Our male customers are now bringing their families along."
A Cut Above moves store
At the same time Gary's began offering women's cuts, another Yellowknife salon, A Cut Above, made a switch of its own, moving from its location in the Centre Square Mall to a new spot in the Panda II Mall in early November.
The two events are no coincidence, according to Sylvie Beaupied, a hairstylist at A Cut Above.
"We can do men's hair here now, which we couldn't do before, because of (Gary's)," Beaupied said.
Beaupied welcomes the move, saying traffic has increased thanks to the salon's new male customers.
Thumbs-down on rentals
Customers at Bruno's Pizza and Deli have no doubt noticed the empty green racks which used to house movies for rent at the store.
Bruno's recently stopped renting movies "because there was no money in it," said Dave Whittaker, the store's pizza dough maker.
The store began selling the movies off for as low as $5 apiece, getting rid of hundreds of movies, added Whittaker.
Bike shopping already
For Yellowknifers, it's never too early to start shopping for a summer bike, and that's why Overlander Sports has already brought in some new stock, such as mountain bikes from Rocky Mountain and Norco, according to Adam Krisch, a salesperson at the store.
Krisch attributes the move to a surge in popularity in biking due to high gas prices.
"Normally, the number of bikes at our store winds down in September," Krisch said.
"This year, they remained well past that, and now we've already got some 2008 bikes."