nothin Temple St. Salon Nails Spa Market | New Haven Independent

Temple St. Salon Nails Spa Market

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Jaynes at her salon.

Pat Hall Jaynes has a knack for starting businesses. She’s started two and has been a partner in a third.

Now she’s hoping her new venture, a nail salon near Yale University’s campus, will be her next success story.

I am first and foremost an entrepreneur,” Jaynes said. I love starting businesses.”

Nearly a year ago, Jaynes transformed the commercial space on the second floor of the three-story, Temple Street brownstone that she owns with her husband into a full-service salon called The Nail Spa that caters to Yale students.

Slowly but surely, non-Yalies are being drawn into the spa-like experience that Jaynes has created and plans to expand in a year or two.

The idea for the nail salon came to her after previous tenants, including a real estate agency and a psychologist’s practice, had moved on from the space. When they left, she began using as a New Haven office for her own business, but it was too much space for her.

For the last 22 years, Jaynes has been the CEO of a Maryland-based human resources staffing and consulting firm called The HR Source that she started as her answer to the question: What would I do if I got downsized or laid off?

Back then she was working in the human resources department of what was then Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), and that’s exactly what the company was doing. She was never laid off. But after 18 months of working for herself and holding down her day job, she said, she took a leap of faith that led her to be in business for herself full time.

She started making the trip back and forth to New Haven after she met her husband, Gerald, a professor of economics and African American studies at Yale. Jaynes said when she first started coming to New Haven she was not impressed but as the city has changed and grown, so has her feelings about it.

It is one of my favorite little cities,” she said, noting how she and her husband enjoy going to dinner and shows.

The nail salon idea occurred to her because of her own history as part owner of a hair salon and spa. It solidified after she discovered that the city doesn’t have a lot of nail salons and that many of them had closed over poor business practices such as failing to pay taxes and minimum wage.

With her business acumen and a location with an almost instant customer base — the brownstone at 413 Temple is across from Yale’s Helen Hadley Hall and practically next door to Yale’s Office of International Students & Scholars — Jaynes concluded the city could support another nail salon.

She wanted to make The Nail Spa distinct, a place where customers could relax with soft music, snacks, and fruit-infused water.

We’re not going to be rushing you in or rushing you out,” Jaynes said. If you want to get in and out we will do that for you but we also wanted to have a very relaxing ambiance and people who are able to have a conversation with you. It’s nice, it’s relaxing and the ambiance is exactly what I was going for.”

Jaynes, who remains active in her business in Maryland, employs two nail technicians, Jasmin Cameron and Fredina Mendez, who also serves as the spa manager.

We have an awesome team of ladies here who keep it together and really allow me to go back and forth like I do,” she said. They are amazing.”

Cameron and Mendez with Jaynes (center).

College students get 10 percent off when they show their university ID. Starting in late September, The Nail Spa will add an eyelash application to the regular rotation of services it offers beyond its vegan manicures and pedicures. On Sept. 24 you can get $10 mini-manis and pedis as part of a special event to kick off the new eyelash business.

Currently, tenants live on the third floor of the brownstone. When they move out in a year or two, Jaynes plans to move the nail salon upstairs and make it bigger, while also expanding the spa part of the business to include a blow dry bar and massage therapy.

I’m really excited about the blow bar concept,” she said. I think that with being right on the Yale campus and all that hair running around here, I think that will be a great opportunity for us. Before I started the nail salon I did some research to find out what was happening in New Haven, what was coming and what they have planned is incredible. I think the growth has been slower than anticipated, but I can see it coming just from the time that I was introduced to New Haven to now.”

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