Tallulah Road salon adding popular option
Tallulah – Mac Turkmen has worked for himself since he was 9 years old when he went door-to-door polishing shoes. As a teenager, he owned a restaurant.
Turkmen served as a diver in the Turkish Naval Forces as a young adult, and – putting his training and experience to work – he spent decades traveling the world as a commercial diver, most recently maintaining and inspecting the dams of Graham County.
He grew tired of living in hotels most of the year and Graham County had a special allure, so 13 years ago he made a decision.
“I liked the area and I stayed,” he said.
He hung up his diving gear and decided to get into something else. He put his business acumen to work and identified an area that Graham County was lacking.
That’s how a commercial diver came to start and run a nail salon in Robbinsville. Turkmen studied the market and developing a business plan, and in February 2018, he opened Polished-Up nail salon. With space to grow, the salon soon added hair care.
Now Turkmen is expanding into the neighboring unit. Polished-Up Tanning opens for business early next month, and features three tanning beds and one standup tanning booth. There is additional space and Turkmen is evaluating how best to use it. Turkmen has a wealth of experience besides diving. His father was a brick mason and taught him those skills. He has been a carpenter and welder, as well. He used many of those skills to do all the construction work himself at his salons. One thing he didn’t know was anything about manicuring. Once he identified the need in Graham County, he recruited local people with outgoing personalities and together they attended a nails academy in Charlotte. Turkmen rented an Airbnb for his recruits and they completed the required 300 hours of training over seven weeks – all at his expense.
Just as they are for his hair and nail salon, service and prices for tanning will be competitive and it just won’t make sense to drive to Murphy or Sylva, he said.
The tanning salon is located adjacent to the nail and hair salon at 722 Tallulah Rd. in Robbinsville. Hours are 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Walk-ins are welcome and the salons can accommodate clients outside normal business hours by appointment. Call (828) 479-1400 for more information, or to make an appointment.