Gazette Business

Firm’s cutting edge forces expansion

By Richard Garfield

12:06pm Friday 27th January 2012

A BARBER shop and hairdressers has proved it is a cut above by expanding into a second Basingstoke premises.

Trilbys Barber Shop & Hairdressers, run by Andrew Seery and his wife Geri, has opened its second shop in Wote Street, just yards away from the couple’s popular Potters Walk unit.

“We just outgrew the first salon,” said Andrew. “Even though the wait was never more than 10 minutes, we found that people were coming to the window and just walking away.”

Andrew said the two shops now operate side by side, employing 21 people.

Many are pleased to see the business buck the national high street trend with an expansion that sees the Wote Street premises filled after being unoccupied for over two years.

No stranger to taking a leap of faith during tough times, Andrew said: “We started the business in a recession, back in 1991. But I was confident about what I wanted to do and the business grew.”

“Back then, we only cut men’s hair. But about eight years ago we started to cater for a lot more women, and so we’ve really become a family hairdressers.”

Andrew said the business would have expanded earlier. “The only things that have kept us back is the extortionate cost of shop units and getting enough skilled people,” said Andrew, who also teaches his hairdressing skills at BCoT, said he could have opted to move to larger premises, but thinks having two nearby shops is a better answer – allowing him to provide a better service to customers.

“If one shop is busier then customers can go to the other one,” explained Andrew.

The same service is offered at both shops with traditional and modern cuts for both men and women, as well as children.

However, the new swish 900 sq ft shop, complete with attractive décor, including bamboo flooring, offers a few extras such as cut-throat shaving and Indian head massage.

The success of Trilbys is all the more remarkable as in 2003 Andrew underwent a liver transplant. His liver had failed due to porphyria, a genetic condition that affects the nervous system. Now he receives weekly blood transfusions to boost his red blood cells and to counteract the damage the porphyria causes.

Last year, Trilbys was voted as Basingstoke’s Most-Loved Small Business in a website poll.

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