'Tabatha's Salon Takeover': Inside Tabatha's Real-Life Salon

During last night's second season premiere of 'Tabatha's Salon Takeover,' the staff at a Chicago hair salon stood motionless and mostly dumbstruck as Tabatha Coffey forced their boss to pour $50 worth of hair products down the drain -- literally. Soon, the staff shed tears when, under Coffey's direction, they had to move a bunch of junk from the salon's basement to the home of Orbit Salon owner Eddie Cheung, an avowed "product junkie." By then, they knew that Tabatha had officially taken over.

Cast in the mold of Fox's Gordon Ramsay series, 'Kitchen Nightmares,' 'Tabatha's Salon Takeover' posits Coffey as a drill sergeant disciplinarian whose main goal is to chastise, reprimand and tell it like it is (brutally, of course).

Yet a visit to Coffey's own salon, Industrie Hair Gurus, yields a much different picture. Inside her Ridgewood, New Jersey locale, Coffey appears warm, approachable and miles away from the hard-driving persona hyped up on the show. The only request she makes of her staff is a reasonable one -- to cut a pesky tag off the back of her shirt as she snips and combs. "I'm tough, I'm talented, I'm taking over," says a stone-faced Coffey at the beginning of each episode.During last night's second season premiere of 'Tabatha's Salon Takeover,' the staff at a Chicago hair salon stood motionless and mostly dumbstruck as Tabatha Coffey forced their boss to pour $50 worth of hair products down the drain -- literally. Soon, the staff shed tears when, under Coffey's direction, they had to move a bunch of junk from the salon's basement to the home of Orbit Salon owner Eddie Cheung, an avowed "product junkie." By then, they knew that Tabatha had officially taken over.

Cast in the mold of Fox's Gordon Ramsay series, 'Kitchen Nightmares,' 'Tabatha's Salon Takeover' posits Coffey as a drill sergeant disciplinarian whose main goal is to chastise, reprimand and tell it like it is (brutally, of course).

Yet a visit to Coffey's own salon, Industrie Hair Gurus, yields a much different picture. Inside her Ridgewood, New Jersey locale, Coffey appears warm, approachable and miles away from the hard-driving persona hyped up on the show. The only request she makes of her staff is a reasonable one -- to cut a pesky tag off the back of her shirt as she snips and combs. "I'm tough, I'm talented, I'm taking over," says a stone-faced Coffey at the beginning of each episode.

But at her salon, while sporting the same trademark, edgy and short-platinum 'do, she's actually soft-spoken. Her eyes twinkle as she smiles. She seems at ease, maybe because she knows her floor isn't covered in hair, nor is her sink coated with grime.

A visit to Coffey's salon doesn't impress with bells and whistles. Housed in a mini-strip mall, the place is minimal and clean, not flashy or over the top. A simple poster advertising the Bravo show that made her a star, 'Shear Genius,' is the only indication of her star power (ok, and maybe the alleged three-month wait for an appointment). While her assistants are always ready to go (no surprise there), Coffey herself doesn't seem to make them walk on eggshells. Instead, she is completely down to Earth. Like any good stylist, she's also eager to hear about her clients, never harping on about or even mentioning her show. And this writer, having visited the salon twice, left with nary an errant bit of hair on her cheek.

Though Coffey's directives on the reality series might seem harsh at first listen, her advice to salon owners during her "takeovers" is pragmatic. Consider last night's visit as an example. Cheung said that after 23 years in the business, he's beyond stressed, "desperate" and $750,000 in debt from his two salons. So, a listening session with the staff was held to address their concerns, among them being a lack of structure and effective authority figure. Enter Coffey. Not beyond picking up clumps of hair and coating her hand in dust to prove a point, she expected the same from Cheung as he reluctantly let some some of his product drop down the drain. The message: out with the bad, and you might still have a viable business.

Six weeks later, on Coffey's return visit, the salon was attracting more walk-ins and the staff was boasting continual teamwork in a de-cluttered, radiant salon. By the episode's end, the head stylist was glowing, along with the rest of the staff as he conceded that tough love was necessary.

"I realized why she did what she did."

'Tabatha's Salon Takeover' airs Tue., 10PM on Bravo.