When driving past the hair salon, Newfie Style HairCutters, Acton residents likely have the same question on their minds: what is a Newfie-style haircut?
According to owner and founder Tina Dwyer, it’s a combination of a childhood memory and the time-honoured Canadian tradition of the Newfie joke.
“I've had so many people come in and say, ‘where's the bowl?,’” Dwyer said, noting her father would often cut the hair of her four brothers using a bowl on their heads.
While there won’t actually be any kitchenware utilized at Newfie Style, it’s that sort of jovial atmosphere that Dwyer hopes to create in her shop at 372 Queen St. E. in the former First Choice HairCutters space, where she actually used to work.
Dwyer, herself a proud Newfoundlander from Bell Island, plays the music of her people in the shop, which is abuzz with the down-to-earth sense of humour the island is famous for.
“I get the little old men into chairs and I lean up to them and say, ‘I got you in my hands now,’ whispering in their ears, trying to make them laugh,” she said.
The shop is unisex and also does children’s hair cuts. Dwyer is looking into learning how to whiten teeth, do eyelash extensions and spray tans, and hopes to one day knock down a wall and expand her space.
Though Dwyer can speak at length about hairdressing, there’s another aspect of her life that she’s particularly happy to talk about. She’s two-and-half-years sober - a story that she’s keen on telling as a “proud recovering alcoholic.”
She said she started drinking many years ago during a time when she was working in real estate. The profession has a certain level of client entertainment, leading to boozy meetings. Yet, a dark moment in her life really caused things to spiral. Her brother died in 2019.
“I drank more after Brian died. I drank every day. I just couldn’t cope with it,” she said.
Yet that same year, Dwyer picked herself back up and began attending AA meetings.
Eventually her boss and close friend, Marion Mclean, told her to come back to work at the Acton First Choice location. By September 2021, it was looking like that shop wasn’t going to last, with Dwyer finding a resignation note from the two staff members upon arrival.
“I was here by myself. We had nobody else. And COVID is still going on. So I worked a couple of days and I'm thinking like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”
When Mclean told her the lease on that First Choice location was up in April 2022 and she wanted to shut down, Dwyer said she would stay on until then.
Around Christmas of last year, after an extra hand was hired for the shop, customer numbers started going up, and Mclean offered Dwyer the chance to take over.
“I said, ‘I don't want it to be First Choice,’“ she recalled. “When I decided that I was going to take it over, I said, ‘I want my heritage.’ I'm a very proud Newfoundlander.”
With that, Newfie Style HairCutters was born in April.