When Maria Garcia told her family she would one day run her own beauty salon, they laughed. She was only 8 years old.
As a child, Garcia was mesmerized watching her aunt cut hair, paying close attention to the small details that went into the craft. The second oldest of 11 siblings, she grew up in a communal ranch in Mexico’s western state of Nayarit, where hardship was a constant reality.
“We were very poor, with very low resources, and at times we didn’t even have anything to eat,” Garcia said. “I said to myself, ‘No, I can’t accept this. I have to do something in my life.’”
By the time she was 15, Garcia moved to Tepic, the biggest city in Nayarit, to attend barbering school.
She had no professional tools — just a pair of scissors her mother had brought back from the U.S. that were meant for cutting fabric, not hair. “I had such a desire to learn, to study,” Garcia said. “I was determined to accomplish this.”
With the help of a close friend, she was able to gather enough money to buy a comb, scissors and a cape. Eventually, she completed her degree in barbering.
Shortly after graduating, a friend convinced Garcia to move to Los Angeles. The plan was simple: work for a year, save money and return to Mexico to open her own salon.
In L.A., she started working at a beauty salon while earning her cosmetology license. “I didn’t buy clothes, I didn’t buy shoes,” she remembers. “My clients or my friends donated clothes and gave me shoes.”
She spent the rest of her teenage years in L.A., where she built a life: earning her license, getting married, having two children and helping her husband operate six beauty salons. But tensions between the couple and his family eventually ended their marriage. Her husband kept the beauty salons, but for Garcia, the most important battle was successfully gaining custody of her children. “And that’s when I decided to move to San Francisco.”
After the divorce, Garcia found herself starting over once again. When she moved to the city in the mid-1980s, she took a job at a beauty salon, working long hours to save up. But her dream never faded. Sitting inside her own shop decades later, Garcia’s eyes lit up as she reminisced about the moment she finally fulfilled that childhood dream. “When I was working on opening this place, I missed my son’s birthday so I could finish cleaning it because I had already painted the walls. This place was totally different — it looked abandoned.”
In July 1990, Mary’s Beauty Salon officially opened its doors. Back then, a haircut cost $5. Today, it’s $25, which in today’s money is still affordable. This price-point, she believes, is a huge part of the formula that has kept her business running, cultivating decades-long loyal customers.
“I’ve been coming here for 15 years,” said Roberto Martinez, stepping out of the barber chair with a fresh cut. “I just think they do a great job, and you’re supporting a local business.”
Cesia Mena-Gutierrez, 34, has known Garcia since childhood. Her mother, a longtime friend of Garcia’s, used to bring her and her twin sister to the salon in the 1990s. Now, she works as a hairstylist there — a full-circle moment. “We literally grew up here,” Mena-Gutierrez said. “I remember when she gave us our first haircut,” Mena-Gutierrez recalls. “What’s crazy is she gave my daughter her first haircut.”
Garcia also works alongside her younger sister, Irma Garcia, 49, who has been cutting hair for almost 15 years, and hairstylist Ruth Levy, 40, who has been in the industry for over two decades.
Located next to La Mexicana Bakery on the bustling 24th Street corridor, Mary’s Beauty Salon stands as one of the longest-running Latina-owned salons in the Mission. It has weathered decades of gentrification, outlasting many other beauty businesses priced out of the neighborhood.
Garcia currently owns two other salons in the Mission, but her original shop remains a symbol of resilience, immigrant ambition, and the deep human connections that can be found within other storefronts stretched along the 24th Street corridor, the beating heart of Latinx life in the city.
As customers trickled in during rush hour, Garcia paused for one final reflection.
“Do you know why I feel happy? Because we’re Latinos… Latinos always have to keep going up. We cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated by barriers. We continue to find purpose here.”
