Ezza Nails, a Chicago-based nail salon startup, is opening a third location in the Windy City.
Located at 26 S. Halsted St. in the West Loop, the new salon is significantly bigger than Ezza's first two. It has two stories, a dedicated space for corporate events, and retail space to sell Ezza-branded apparel and backpacks. Items are embroidered with the startup's slogan: "Tough as nails."
“It was really important to us that the next neighborhood be the West Loop,” said Ezza co-founder Kim Marsh. “We saw a gap in the market for nails in that area."
Ezza’s first salon is located in Streeterville at 240 E. Illinois St., and the second location at 180 N. Wacker Drive in the Loop opened last summer.
The new salon, which opened Monday, was originally slated to open in April, but was postponed due to the coronavirus crisis. To protect workers and customers from possible transmission of Covid-19, Ezza is grouping employee shifts so the same people are working with each other day after day, taking daily temperature checks of all employees and implementing capacity limits.
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Additionally, nail technicians will sit behind plexiglass barriers, and wear face masks and shields. Every customer is also required to wear a mask. Ezza is also sanitizing shared objects more often and providing hand sanitizer throughout the salon.
Launched in 2016 by Marsh and Ale Breuer, two Teach for America and University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumnae, Ezza differentiates itself from traditional nail salons by offering membership models, and allowing customers to book appointments and pay for services online.
Ezza says it offers high hourly wages, bonus pay, health and dental benefits, and paid training and career advancement opportunities, employee benefits usually not offered to salon workers. Marsh said the average Ezza nail technician makes between $20 to $25 per hour. The startup employs 43 people, most of which are nail technicians.
The salon’s name, Ezza, comes from the Italian word “essato,” which means exact.
In 2019, Ezza raised $1.5 million in a funding round that included local investor Matt McCall and GingerBread Capital, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture firm that invests in women-founded startups.
