Jenny Rustad has had the dream of opening her own hair salon since she was a little girl, and now, 12 years after she started cutting hair, her ownership dreams are reality.
Urban Edge Cuts opened in White Bear Lake in December, and the family that was with her in those daydreaming years helped make it happen. Rustad’s parents moved to White Bear about a year and a half ago, and the family immediately had their eye on the corner of East County Road F and White Bear Avenue North as a potential salon spot. “My dad somehow kept talking to the landlord here and came to me and was telling me about it,” Rustad says. Talks with the landlord continued, and in October, they signed the lease. This was just the beginning of family involvement.
Rustad’s mom, dad, sister, three brothers, sister-in-law, several nieces and nephews, as well as Rustad’s 2-year-old daughter Lidiana, all contributed to the final version of Urban Edge Cuts. Her daughter was the push she needed to see it through. “I have to do this for her,” Rustad says. “So here I am, and it’s open and it’s still very surreal.”
In designing the salon, her family found inspiration wherever they could. Her mom, Mary, found an idea for a wall designed out of old pallets on Pinterest, and her dad, Dan, found all the oak pallets for free, next to his work building. He built the pallet wall in the salon, creating a rustic yet contemporary look.
One of her brothers and his wife took over the decoration. “They would pretty much tell my dad, ‘No, we should do it this way’… But I loved it all,” Rustad says. “It’s simple and fits everything.”
As part of the family theme, Rustad also had the family turn a back room into a kids’ room, complete with chalkboard paint on the walls, and toys and books to entertain the kids while Mom or Dad is at the salon. It was something Rustad, as a single mom, went out of her way to do. “We respect families,” she says. “Some moms can’t even go get their hair done because they have their kids.”
Dan Rustad says that part of the reason the family was so eager to help was because “we knew she’s good at what she does,” he says. “You can’t even talk to her when she’s cutting hair because she’s just [zoned in].”
The location, in a family neighborhood, had already been a hair salon, so all of the plumbing was set up for the extra sinks needed, saving a lot of time and money—time that helped them open the salon in a month and a half.
Stylist Sara Carlson rents a chair in the salon, and Rustad plans to rent out a few more. The salon offers color, haircuts, perms, styles and waxing—“pretty much everything you can do in a salon,” says Rustad.
Aside from the clear family ties, Urban Edge Cuts stands out as a salon catering to all. Men, women and families are comfortable here, both because of ambience and pricing. “My motto is that you don’t have to spend a fortune to look like a million,” Rustad says. “So that’s our thing. We’re inexpensive and still do a good job, and we’re doing the best job we can.”
