What to know
- Fuzz first opened its first location at 701 Queen St. W. in 2012, offering wax-focused services and innovative beauty memberships.
- Since then, the business has expanded to 18 locations, including 13 franchise-owned and operated.
- Fuzz’s flagship location burned down in 2023, prompting the business to move to a pop-up location nearby.
- Last week, the location re-opened after the building was repaired by the landlords, bringing Fuzz back to its beloved original location, under a sleeker design.
Three years after completely burning to the ground, Canada’s leading hair removal brand is reopening its staple Queen Street West location that promises to make customers’ experiences even better than before.
Hair removal service provider Fuzz has just reopened its flagship location at 701 Queen St. W. after a fire burned it to the ground in 2023.
Now Toronto spoke with the brand’s co-founder Jessie Frampton about what it means to see the location up and running again after the challenging setback.
First in the business
Fuzz’s very first location opened on Queen Street back in 2012, when Frampton and her co-founder Florence Gaven-Rossavik first had the idea of opening Toronto’s first waxing-only concept bar.
The brand was also the duo’s first entrepreneurship endeavour, but with an original idea and extensive market research, it soon took off to become a favourite for the community.
Originally, the brand focused on waxing services and soon expanded to include laser and VMP facials, including a membership option which allows customers to stay consistent and access exclusive pricing and perks.
“The key there was being the first. Everyone loves new ideas, and another thing is we’re membership based,” Frampton told Now Toronto.
“We started the memberships when it comes to beauty. People didn’t really think ‘beauty and membership,’ but…we wanted to motivate our community to come back,” she said.
Since 2012, the brand has come a long way, expanding to 18 locations, with 13 of them being franchise-owned and operated.
Queen Street location burned down in 2023
In Sept. 27, 2023, Frampton and Gaven-Rossavik received a phone call from their VP of Operations informing them that their flagship store on Queen Street was on fire.
“Complete shock came over my whole body. It was our first location. It was a location that Flo and I physically built to save money on our startup costs. We were priming and painting and putting up the drywall with our partners at the time…It just meant so much to us,” Frampton said.
After the fire, the location was completely burned down, leaving them to find a pop-up location near Queen Street and Spadina Avenue to carry the business on temporarily.
Even though loyal customers kept their memberships and continued accessing the service, Frampton said the new location did not reflect the image the brand used to offer.
That was when the 701 Queen St. W. building owner messaged them saying they were working on re-building the location, inviting them to keep their flagship store in the same address.
“We got so lucky. It could have just been empty, they could have just made it something else, but I think it was the brand reputation that actually definitely helped us through that,” Frampton said.
Re-built location opens
Three years later, their flagship location reopened last week, bringing back the same quality of service at an even better space.
According to Frampton, the recently-built location comes with an even sleeker design that allows for a remarkable client experience and smoother processes, including a smaller reception and a new cabin that will allow for busier days.
“It’s beautiful, it’s clean, it’s modern, it’s sleek… We’re pretty proud of it,” she added.
