Serendipity Salon Moves to Bigger Location Right up the Street

GENEVA, IL — Upon realizing she needed a bigger space, Kat Hanson moved Serendipity Salon seven blocks up the street from it's original location.

Hanson rented a small house that is zoned commercial to open the new location of Serendipity Salon at 8 Richards St., Geneva this past July.

Hanson, 36, first opened the salon in March and shortly after, in April, she knew she needed something larger.

“I called it ‘Serendipity’ because my entire life has been stumbling onto opportunity,” Hanson said to Kane County Chronicle. “Just tripping over it. I was so afraid of going out on my own and these corporate jobs were exhausting. Finally, when I was pregnant, this is the time when I finally have to do this.”

Hanson, an Aurora resident, originally worked at a high-end salon in Chicago.

“I was there seven years doing $20,000 in hair a month,” Hanson said to Kane County Chronicle. “I was completely burnt out working six days a week. Getting out of work at 9 or 10 p.m at night – I did not have much of a life and I wanted to have balance.”

She ended up working in various salons in New Orleans, New York, and Washington, D.C.

When Hanson got pregnant last year, she decided to move back to the area since her family lives in Lisle, Naperville, St. Charles and Aurora, according to Kane County Chronicle.

Her son was born in January, and she opened Serendipity Salon in March.

“People think I’m crazy to have a baby myself and open a business by myself,” Hanson said.

Hanson sat on the business plan for two to three years before working up the confidence to open her own business.

“It is scary to open your own business – but you realize anybody can fire you at any time,” Hanson told Kane County Chronicle. “Job security is kind of an illusion. People come to you for you. There is nothing holding anybody back from working for yourself.”

Photo courtesy of Mainstream/Flickr