Our Story

In September 1993, the doors of Patrick’s Hair Design opened for the very first time.

Founded by Caledonia local Patti Spratt, Patrick’s began with a simple but ambitious vision: to create a salon where both the people who worked there and the community they served could feel proud to belong.

Patti was not quite 23 years old when she opened the salon. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, she brought with her an incredible drive, a strong work ethic, and a belief that something special could be built by putting people first.

From the beginning, Patrick’s was founded on three core principles: teamwork, exceptional customer service, and continuing education.

Patti believed that when talented people worked together, supported one another, and were given opportunities to continue learning and growing, everyone benefited, including the clients who walked through the door.

What started as a small salon with just a handful of local hairstylists quickly grew.

Within only a few years, Patrick’s had doubled its original footprint. Patti continued seeking out promising young talent to train and mentor while supporting the established stylists who had helped build the salon from the beginning.

Just as important was the team working behind the scenes. Exceptional front-desk and support staff became an essential part of the Patrick’s experience, helping the service team while ensuring every guest felt welcomed and cared for from the moment they arrived.

Patti instilled a culture of collaboration throughout the salon. Everyone had a role to play, everyone supported one another, and no one succeeded alone.

With ongoing education, high standards, and a commitment to excellence in every service, Patrick’s became much more than a place to get your hair done. It became a place people could call home.

Longtime team members stayed and built their careers here while new talent grew alongside them. Over the years, that created a diverse team of professionals with different specialties, personalities, and strengths, allowing Patrick’s to welcome clients of every age and from every walk of life.

By 2012, the salon had evolved beyond its beginnings, and Patti reintroduced it as Patrick’s Haircare & Esthetics.

The new name reflected what Patrick’s had become: not simply a neighbourhood hair salon, but a destination dedicated to caring for our clients’ hair, beauty, and overall experience.

The salon continued to thrive, welcoming new professionals while remaining home to team members who had already spent decades building their careers at Patrick’s.

By 2018, Patti began thinking about the next chapter.

After more than 25 years of growing Patrick’s, she knew that eventually the salon would need a new leader, someone who understood its history, believed in its values, loved its people, and could carry it confidently into the future.

She didn’t have to look very far.

Patti approached Nicole Vasil, who by then had been part of the Patrick’s family for 18 years, and asked whether she was ready to take on the challenge.

Patti approached Nicole Vasil, who by then had been part of the Patrick’s family for 18 years, and asked whether she was ready to take on the challenge.

Over the next year and a half, Patti worked alongside Nicole, supporting and preparing her for the transition from longtime team member to business owner. In January 2020, Patti officially sold her shares of Patrick’s to Nicole, entrusting her with the salon she had spent nearly three decades building.

Nicole stepped into ownership, excited to lead Patrick’s into its next era.

Then, only a few months later, the world changed.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic reached Canada, and Nicole suddenly found herself learning how to lead a newly acquired business through lockdowns, closures, constantly changing regulations, staffing challenges, supply-chain disruptions, and an industry facing unprecedented uncertainty.

The years that followed required resilience, patience, creativity, and an enormous willingness to adapt.

Through it all, Nicole remained committed to the values Patrick’s had been built upon.

Like Patti before her, she focused on rebuilding and investing in people. New hairstylists, estheticians, and support staff joined longtime members of the Patrick’s team. It was a younger team with plenty of learning and growing ahead of them, but they shared something important: the desire to build careers they could genuinely be proud of.

They learned together, supported one another, and grew together.

Today, nearly seven years into Nicole’s journey as owner, she can look around Patrick’s and see just how far both she and her team have come.

More than three decades after Patti first opened those doors, Patrick’s continues to evolve while remaining rooted in the principles that made it special from the beginning: teamwork, education, exceptional service, community, and a genuine commitment to helping people grow.

We are proud of where we came from.

We are proud of the team we have today.

And we are incredibly excited about where Patrick’s goes next.

But both Patti and Nicole know that, no matter what the future holds, the most important reason Patrick’s has continued to grow and succeed is the extraordinary loyalty of the clients and community who have supported us through every chapter.

For more than 30 years, you have trusted us, grown with us, and made Patrick’s part of your lives—and none of this would exist without you.