CUMMING, Ga. — When we first met Logan Shawver in April of 2019, he was all smiles while cutting and styling the hair of his clients at Big Love Cuts, a salon he founded more than 10 years ago.
“It’s literally about loving people, and the way that I love people best is by giving them haircuts and making them feel great,” he said. “That's why I do what I do.”
Fast forward one year, and Shawver is, for the most part, still all smiles. However, there are no longer any clients. In fact, the salon is nonexistent as of Saturday afternoon.
“If I did not close down the shop, we would have no money,” Shawver said.
He’s one of many small business owners dealing with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and Georgia’s response to it. Shawver said he applied for government assistance but to no avail.
“I'm still not even getting denied for unemployment. It says ‘check back in 24 hours’ every time, so that doesn't help,” he said. “The $10,000 grant that the government said they would pass to small businesses when they applied, turned into $1,000 which still hasn't shown up.”
Unlike restaurants that were able to offer curbside pickup and delivery during the recent stay-at-home order, hair salons didn’t have many options.
“If you talk to any other hair stylist that has a passion for it like I do, the moment we were told to stay home, depression was hitting everybody,” Shawver said. “What were we supposed to do? We could not make money. They literally told us the only thing that makes us money we can't do.”
He said he used the recent downtime to flesh out ideas for other business ventures, some of which he was already working on.
“Some of the things I've just been kind of scatterbrained working on for the past couple years are Big Love combs, clothing, coffee, catering, consulting, CBD, you get the idea,” Shawver said laughing at the blatant alliteration. “I think we're going to change Big Love Cuts to Big Love Co.”
He said he’s not upset by the way things played out with the salon. More than anything, Shawver said he’s relieved.
“I'm very thankful that I no longer have to sit here with the worry of going ‘I have this weekly rent above my head with zero help,’” he said. “Now I can kind of breath.”
Shawver said he is passionately pursuing all the projects he’s had little to no time for in the past. One thing is for certain, he said. Regardless of the project, he will pour his whole heart into it.
“Everything I do will have big love behind it, Shawver said. “This new chapter of life is stepping me into the unknown of formulating a company that kind of does everything and still putting big love behind it.”
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