CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If there’s anyone who can attest that hard work pays off, it’s Angel Robinson. Robinson owns Charlie’s Angel Beauty Bar in northwest Charlotte.
She had barely graduated beauty school when she was literally handed the keys to her own salon more than 25 years ago.
“There was an older man who was leaving the country and he was giving away everything,” Robinson said. “He had a building in the area where I was raised that had a beauty salon inside.”
The man had paid a visit to Robinson's former school and told instructors he wanted to leave the building space to a hardworking student.
Instructors recommended Robinson get the business as a reward for her work ethic.
“Four months after I graduated from school, I am all of a sudden blessed with this whole business. But I didn’t know anything about how to run one,” Robinson said.
“It was all trial and error.”
Robinson now has nine businesses under her belt.
She owned seven different hair salons in Cleveland before moving to Charlotte and taking ownership of two others.
Today, she leads a staff of four employees inside her shop on West Trade Street.
Robinson calls her business “the Chick-fil-A of hair salons in Charlotte.”
She says she operates under the slogan: “We cut. We color. We care.”
When asked what being a black business owner means to her, Robinson says she’s more than proud.
“The fact that I am a first-generation business owner in my family makes me proud,” Robinson said.
“I had a ninth-grade education. I could have stopped there and chosen to be a statistic and live a mediocre life, but I didn’t.
“I wasn’t happy with the status quo and I refuse to be happy with it to this day.”
Charlie’s Angels Beauty Bar is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.
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Cox Media Group
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