Last week, I had the pleasure of sharing a long lunch with David Wagner, owner of Juut Salonspa. I’ve known his name since the days of Horst & Friends, where I got my first grown-up haircuts. And as a native Minnesotan and Aveda fan, I always felt right at home with the Juut concept. What I didn’t get, however, was Juut’s Daymaking movement.
The idea is nothing new: change the world by simply making someone’s day. In other words, pay it forward. Though it has been bottled and branded a million different ways (like The Secret, which – sorry Ohps – is no secret), David coined the Daymaker phrase and has been living it, teaching it, and talking about it for decades. He even wrote a best selling book called Life as a Daymaker. It’s not surprising then, that Daymaking is splashed all over the Juut Website. Read any job description for the company and it’s an invitation to become a Daymaker. While I’m really glad that Juut service providers remain on a first name basis with customers (vs. Daymaker #1, 2, 3 . . .), I can’t say that every visit to a Juut salonspa has changed my world, or filled me up–as the Japanese word Juuten implies. Basically, I’m not so sure that Juut practices Daymaking with the same conviction David preaches.
He agrees. And this is where lunch got really interesting. According to David, making Daymaking a way of life at Juut, as he envisions, will mean change. One step toward reinvigorating the brand will be relocating the Edina Juut from its Cub Foods parking lot location to the former Louis XIII space at Southdale. Should that move come to fruition in August as planned, we’ll have three floors to experience Daymaking: an interactive art gallery in the lower level, salon and spa services on the second floor, and a things-of-beauty retail (like fresh-cut flowers) and rejuvenation (like fresh-squeezed juices) space on the first. It would not only good news for Southdale, which Allison Kaplan discussed in a recent column, but also for anyone who’s forgotten what it’s like to feel transformed by a basic haircut.
