In March of 2020, Mary Hughes and her husband, Hunter, were ready to close on the purchase of five Great Clips hair shops to add to their portfolio of 29 salons.
“We were within a day of signing papers,” she says.
At that point, the COVID-19 coronavirus had wreaked havoc elsewhere in the world, and now it was too close to home.
“I thought, ‘Let’s hold off on this for about a week,'” she says. “Then everything started closing.”
The couple passed on the deal, and were forced to close the salons they already owned – 13 in the Chattanooga area, six in and around Birmingham, Alabama, and another 10 in the Mobile, Alabama/Pensacola, Florida, area.