Michael Donahue
Veteran Memphis hair stylist Hans Bermel in his new digs at Phenix Salon Suites.
Hans Bermel still is cutting hair. The popular hair stylist now is at Hans Bermel Salon in the Phenix Salon Suites at 4699 Poplar, Suite 136.
The old Bermel’s Hair Salon at 2885 Poplar Avenue recently closed after 50 years, but Bermel is back in action. Other popular Bermel’s Hair Salon stylists — Anna Marie Bermel Williams, Brian Fairley, and Wendy Bellou — also have their own individual businesses in suites at Phenix.
“Bermel’s is not out of business,” Bermel says. “We just moved further east under a new name.”
And, he says, “Sometimes things are meant to be, and this is one of those things.”
Each stylist works alone in their own suite, Bermel says. “We do the shampooing, [put] the curlers on. We clean the place up. It’s a great concept.”
Bermel and his sister, Anna Marie Bermel Williams, were born in Doornenburg, Holland. “We did our training in Holland under a master hair stylist,” Bermel says. “You start from the bottom to the top while he teaches you to cut hair. It’s an apprenticeship under a salon owner.”
Bermel moved to Memphis in 1966 and opened Bermel Hair Salon with business partners. Other family members, all trained in Holland, later joined him in the business.
Jacob Fountain, co-owner of the Memphis franchise of Phenix Salon Suites, says they feature 37 individual suites, which are “custom fit for salon professionals. It’s a way for them to own their own business without having to deal with any of the overhead, property maintenance, anything like that.
“Everybody will have their own business license as well as shop license. In line with it being their own individual business, they get to name their business and make it however they want,” he says.
“The majority of the people that have signed license agreements with us so far are stylists. It’s more catered toward stylists, but it’s anybody in the salon industry, such as masseuses, nail technicians, estheticians, as well as anybody in the service industry. We can even get a tattoo artist in here.”
Phenix Salon Suites, which is based in Carlsbad, California, has some 250 locations throughout the United States, Fountain says.
The Memphis Phenix location formerly was the site of the old Dixie Cafe. A major renovation was done to the building, Fountain says. “Everything basically had to be redone.”
MIchael Donahue
Hans Bermel and Jacob Fountain
MIchael Donahue
Anna Maria Bermel Williams, Hans Bermel, and Wendy Bellou.
