How Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids Built Loyalty With Families and Franchisees
For many parents, taking a child for a haircut can be daunting. There’s often tears, squirming and lots of frustration. Linda and Scott Sharkey knew that feeling well. “Taking our young children for a haircut was not fun,” Scott says. “Honestly, it was miserable.”
Their experience became the start of Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids, a children’s salon franchise built around the premise that haircuts do not have to be stressful. In fact, they can be fun. “We kept saying, ‘There has to be a better way,’” Scott says.
The couple used their business experience to do something about it. Scott had recently sold his successful barcoding business and Linda came from a background in advertising, working at top agencies including Saatchi and Saatchi as well as Grey advertising.
“Between the two of us, we understood how to build businesses, create memorable brands, and — most importantly — listen to what customers really wanted,” Scott says.
Meeting the Demand
Linda and Scott began researching the idea through organized focus groups with parents and children to better understand what families wanted from a haircut experience. In 2001, they opened the first Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids in Greenwich, Conn. “The funny thing is, we were never thinking about franchising,” Scott says. “Our only goal was to build a place where our own kids would actually look forward to getting a haircut.”
Their salon was an instant hit. “Parents began coming up to us saying, ‘You completely changed the haircut experience for our family,’” Scott says. “We heard it over and over again. That was the moment Linda and I looked at each other and realized we had created something much bigger than one salon.”
Sharkey’s began franchising in 2006. Today, under Scott’s decades-long leadership as CEO, the brand has grown to more than 220 locations open across the United States, with another 78 locations in development, including 40 scheduled to open in 2026. International expansion is planned for 2027, putting Sharkey’s on track to surpass 300 locations worldwide. They built a brand that today is the No. 1 kids’ salon franchise in the world. According to Entrepreneur’s 2026 rankings, Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids ranked No. 1 in the children’s hair care category, No. 346 on Entrepreneur’s 2026 Franchise 500 and No. 118 among its fastest-growing franchises.
Sharkey’s concept works because it takes an everyday need and turns it into a fun experience, something that people increasingly value today. Eventbrite, which helped popularize the concept of the ”experience economy,“ found that 78% of millennials would rather spend money on an experience or event than buy something material.
The Sharkey’s Experience
Step inside a Sharkey’s salon, and it’s easy to see why kids want to come back. Instead of climbing into a traditional salon chair, children can cruise through their haircut in colorful race cars, police cars, fire trucks and vehicles featuring characters from their favorite movies, such as Lightning McQueen from Cars, while watching cartoons and films.
Older kids can play Xbox on 40-inch TVs during their haircut or relax in the private Tween Lounge, a stylish space for haircuts, blowouts, styling and the Ultimate Day of Beauty experience.
Sharkey’s serves children through several stages, from first haircuts to toddlers, elementary-aged kids, tweens and even parents who need a trim. That wide age range keeps families coming back. “Most children’s salons tend to lose customers as kids get older,” Scott says. “We’ve created an experience that grows with them.”
Sharkey’s repeat-customer potential is part of what makes the category appealing. Haircuts are recurring, local and can’t be replaced with technology. The broader hair, nail and skin care services industry in the U.S. is valued at $95.3 billion in 2026, according to IBISWorld.
“Hair grows no matter what the economy is doing,” Scott says. “You can delay a lot of purchases, but eventually kids need a haircut. You cannot put it off forever, and you certainly cannot order it online.”
The Ideal Franchise Owner
Scott says the brand was built for passive and semi-absentee ownership.“We are not looking for hairstylists or people with haircutting experience. In fact, we prefer owners who have never cut hair.”
Sharkey’s looks for entrepreneurs, executives, investors and business owners who want to build a team and grow a business. Licensed stylists cut the hair. Managers run the salon. Franchisees focus on leadership, culture and local growth. “You are not buying a job — you are investing in your future,” Scott says.
For Scott, the right franchisee is someone who treats people well and thinks long term. “I have always believed that 85% of being successful is how you treat other people. When you take care of your employees, they will take great care of your customers.”
His people-first mindset shapes the brand’s culture, too. Scott describes it as fun, supportive and entrepreneurial. “There is a lot of laughter, a lot of energy and a lot of excitement because we get to create memorable experiences for families every single day. If we can make a child smile, take the stress out of a parent’s day and help our franchisees build successful businesses, then we’ve accomplished exactly what we set out to do.”
“Building a brand that families trust for decades, while continuing to innovate and create opportunities for franchisees, is what I believe defines great franchising.”
Q&A: Scott Sharkey
1. What is your favorite business mantra or motto?
I really have two business mantras that have guided me throughout my career.
The first is, ‘Do the right thing, and do it consistently.’ That’s how you build trust — with your customers, your franchisees, your employees and your business partners. People may forget what you say, but they’ll always remember whether they could count on you.
The second is, ‘Make it fun, but make it excellent.’ At Sharkey’s, the kids should be laughing, smiling and having an amazing time. But at the end of the day, the haircut still has to be exceptional. Fun and quality are not mutually exclusive — they go hand in hand. In fact, I believe the best businesses deliver both.
I also believe you can never stop innovating. The day you think you’ve figured everything out is the day you start falling behind. Customer expectations evolve, technology evolves and your business has to evolve with them.
If you consistently do the right thing, never stop improving and always deliver an experience people remember, the business results will take care of themselves.
2. Who in franchising do you admire?
I’ve always admired franchisors who stay true to their brand while never stopping their pursuit of innovation. Building a successful franchise isn’t just about opening more locations — it’s about creating a system that helps franchisees succeed for decades.
One person I’ve admired for many years is Gordon Logan, founder of SportClips. For more than a decade, Gordon has been a mentor to me, and to this day we still speak or text regularly — sometimes weekly. Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids and SportClips share a similar philosophy: we’re both experience-driven salon concepts. SportClips built an exceptional sports-themed experience for men and boys, while Sharkey’s created a fun, immersive kids-themed experience for children and families. Having built SportClips into a franchise system of approximately 2,000 salons, there are few people better to learn from. Gordon’s commitment to franchisee success, strong culture, disciplined growth and unwavering focus on the customer experience has influenced the way I think about building Sharkey’s, and I’m grateful to call him both a mentor and a dear friend.
3. What do you want people to know about you?
If there’s one thing I’d like people to know about me, it’s that everything starts with family.
Linda and I have been married for 33 years, and we’ve been blessed with three incredible children. They are, without question, our greatest accomplishment. Sharkey’s was inspired by our own family, and even as the business has grown, our priorities have never changed. Family has always come first.
The values we try to live by every day came from the way I was raised: work hard, be honest, treat people with respect, and always do the right thing. Those values have shaped every decision I’ve made, both personally and professionally.
One lesson I’ve learned over the years is that people rarely remember exactly what you said — they remember how you made them feel. That’s true in business, in friendships and especially within your own family. Linda and I have always tried to lead with kindness, compassion, transparency and honesty. We believe those qualities build trust, and trust is the foundation of every meaningful relationship.
More importantly, we want our children to see those values in action every single day. It’s one thing to talk about integrity and honesty; it’s another to live them. We hope they’ve watched us treat people the right way, keep our word and genuinely care about others, because those are lessons that last far longer than anything we could ever say.
That same philosophy extends to our franchisees. One of the things I’m most proud of is that we don’t just teach people how to build a successful business — we teach them how to build a business that fits into their family life, not the other way around. We want our owners to be present for school events, family dinners, vacations and the moments that matter most. Success means very little if it comes at the expense of the people you love.
Learn more about franchise opportunities with Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids.
