Supercuts in Pinecrest Plaza reopens

Supercuts, the hair salon in Pinecrest Plaza is back up and running. It’s by appointment only and with social distancing rules in place as required under Phase 2 of Virginia’s plan to reopen businesses that had been shut down to curb the spread of the coronavirus.  

The salon is open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Friday and 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday. Customers can book appointments, including same-day appointments, here. 

While the store was closed, franchise owner Court Curneen, a nurse, spent six weeks in an intensive care unit in a New York City hospital caring for coronavirus patients at the epicenter of the pandemic. [Customers needn’t worry; Curneen isn’t a stylist.] 

Some of his coworkers died from COVID-19, as well as many patients. “I’ve never seen anything like that. The death rate was about 85 percent of our patients,” he says. “If you get sick enough to require a ventilator, the mortality rate is incredibly high.” 

“It was traumatic and rewarding at the same time,” says Curneen, who grew up in New York City and returned to help out hospital staff overwhelmed by the virus. 

Curneen believes he didn’t get COVID-19 because “either I was really good at PPE or I had immunity.” After a business trip to Minneapolis in January, a place where many people were arriving from China, he got very sick with a high fever and difficulty breathing. “I was told at the time it was pneumonia. In retrospect, it was a pretty classic coronavirus case.”

The Supercuts franchise is a side business for Curneen, who is also a real estate agent and is working on a doctorate degree in nursing practice at Marymount University, which he expects to complete in 2022. 

He has worked as a nurse at several hospitals, served as a health consultant, and is a former director of emergency services at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.  

Curneen is glad Supercuts was able to reopen and hopes customers return. “It was really hard financially to come back, and we are trying our best to make it work,” he says. 

Initially, he wasn’t sure if Supercuts could reopen. He had to lay off the employees, but has since brought back three-quarters of them. He is using 100 percent of a $32,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan from the Small Business Administration for the payroll, which means he won’t have to repay it. “That was enough to open the doors.”

Another factor is the lack of competition, now that many other Supercuts and Hair Cuttery shops are not coming back. 

“With Supercuts salons in Springfield and Falls Church going away, we will be the only one anywhere near Annandale,” Curneen says. Hair Cuttery salons in Annandale, Barcroft Plaza, and Graham Park Plaza are also closed for good. 

Curneen opened the Pinecrest Plaza Supercuts in 2016. “When Staples closed, it hurt our foot traffic. We’re super excited about Lidl,” he says. A Lidl grocery store opening in the spot vacated by Staples. 

The Supercuts in Pinecrest Plaza is larger than the typical Supercuts, so the waiting area didn’t need to be reconfigured to ensure social distancing. There are six hairstyling stations, but to allow for physical distancing, the middle stations have been temporarily removed. 

The shop has been busy, since it reopened on June 15, doing haircuts and color for people who let their hair go during weeks of semi-isolation. The shop is not currently doing waxing or beard trimming for the time being, but will bring back those services as the pandemic further winds down. Curneen also plans to start opening on Sundays in the near future.