Shelby Shambach has opened Beauty on Broadway, a state-of-the-art beauty salon currently offering three beauticians and an aesthetician, along with two pedicare stations and custom-fitted shampoo sinks that are very easy on client necks. Located at 303 S. Broadway Ave. in Salem, Beauty on Broadway is by appointment only at 234-575-7244. Shambach is shown adjusting a mirror at one of the seven beauty stations in the completely renovated building. (Salem News photo by Larry Shields)

SALEM — Beauty on Broadway is where owner Shelby Shambach said, “We make people beautiful.”

The new salon opened on Nov. 14 after Shambach bought the historic building at 303 S. Broadway Ave. and gave it a complete renovation, including dry-ice blasting the original tin ceiling that links it to a storied past.

Shambach and her mother, Penny Less, along with local painter, Joe McKibben, put hours of back-breaking work into redecorating while keeping the building’s substantial historic appeal. McKibben donated his time.

“I tried to keep is as historically correct as I could,” Shambach said.

The building’s longest, most recent tenant was Salem Glass and Mirror, but a document Shambach found on the premises noted that businesses over the years included Wm. Fluckiner’s Market in 1915, the Ohio Grocery Specialty Co. in 1923 and Johnson and Howard, barbers in 1927.

Today, 90 years after the barbershop, Shambach, who grew up in Greenford, plans to continue to keep “everything as original as I can … as I got it.”

The magnificent tin ceiling, the impressively large front windows, a big expense, and the aged wood floor all add to the bygone-day ambiance to the salon.

Beauty on Broadway offers an up-to-date beauty venue that Shambach said she picked up from clues clientele gave her when she worked at Bella’s Salon and Spa for eight years.

They would tell her there was nothing new, nothing up-to-date in Salem.

“They drove to Boardman,” she said, “I know this is old (referring to the building) but I made it a brand new and updated salon. They no longer have to drive to Boardman. Beauty on Broadway is a true beauty.”

It is a full-service salon offering three beauticians and one aesthetician and has seven beauty stations, while offering a body-wrap and waxing section, and eye-lash extensions are available along with a pedicare section.

The shampoo chairs are state-of-the-art, Shambach, a 1998 South Range High School graduate, said.

“The only ones of their kind in Salem because the shampoo sinks are very easy on the neck,” she explained, adding they make a custom fit for each client and are totally painless on neck muscles.

“They’re a custom fit to everyone,” Shambach said, adding it’s one of the “really, really big things” in her salon and for Salem.

The pedicare tub stations feature oxygenated jets which blow sanitary oxygen, she said, making it cleaner and safer. And with two stations, friends, mothers and daughters can set appointments together.

“They didn’t have one in Salem, but now people don’t have to drive,” she said.

Shambach always wanted her own business, and 11 months after buying the building she said, “It feels really good to work here. I really like to work here at night.”

She looks out the big bright front window and said it was another part of the old building that attracted her attention.

“I wanted it to be alive, fun, bright.”

Beauty on Broadway, she said, doesn’t always mean make up and hair.

“It also stands for beautiful inside and beautiful to other people,” Shambach said, “and it just so happens we make people beautiful in here.”

Beauty on Broadway is by appointment only at 234-575-7244.

There will be a grand opening Tuesday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m.

Regarding her beautiful, historical building, Shambach said, “There are a lot of other things I want to do to it.”

lshields@salemnews.net