LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For the last several weeks, Melissa Gray has been counting down the days and so have her customers.
"It feels really great. I have missed everybody," she said. "Our clients aren't just our customers. They're our family."
Gray, a master barber and the owner of Beards and Beers, said she hasn't just been sitting around at home while her barber shop was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"There's a lot of prep that goes into opening up for the next day and I've been working for about five weeks for this day," she said.
A lot of that work has gone into changing the barber shop to keep customers and staff safe. Chairs are now separated by barriers, the capes are now disposable or new, and everyone is required to wear a mask inside. And like many other businesses that have reopened, there is hand sanitizer everywhere.
Gray said there are some other changes to their policy. Customers are now asked to wait inside their cars until their appointment instead of the waiting area, which has been roped off. There is also now a limit of 10 people allowed inside the barber shop and appointments are spaced out to allow for extensive cleaning.
"We are sanitizing the chair and everything they come in contact with from the front door to that chair," she said.
While the changes may appear drastic to customers, Gray said for the barbers themselves, these new protocols aren't that different.
"Barbers in general, we use a lot of sanitation," she said. "We're cleaning with Barbasol on a regular basis. So that's why when you're asking what are we doing that's different, it's minimal compared to what we normally do because we do so much already."
Other businesses are also opening their doors Monday, including salons, tattoo parlors, tanning services and massage parlors. Several have also implemented their own safety changes, like glass sneeze guards at nail salons and increased PPE at tattoo parlors.
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