Serenity offers respite from everyday pressures
Helping you put your best foot forward
Jimene “Jimmy” Rinehart knows a good manicure when she sees it. After all, the former wedding consultant has had to maintain beautifully groomed nails for years and has done so across several different states.
So when her friends David Fan and Kim Phan decided to open a nail spa in the St. Andrews Plaza on U.S. 41 in East Naples, it was natural for Rinehart, the retired owner of three bridal stores, to share some business advice.
“We had long talks about how to have a good business in American society and what makes a place nice,” she said. “We discussed how to provide really good service and personal attention so ladies who want to look nice will keep coming in. The good thing is, they listened.”
Now, Rinehart devotes time to her pet project each day, helping the recently opened Serenity Nails staff – all members of the Phan family – deal with mounds of bureaucratic paperwork, ordering inventory and generally acting as a go-between to help bridge any language barrier.
“To open a new business in this economic climate you have to work hard and be extra special to get people to come in,” says Rinehart. “Serenity is open seven days a week, so it’s a brutal schedule. But the difference is, they take their time and they really take care with their customers.”
She says a lot of places rush through their work and don’t care if what they do isn’t perfect.
“At Serenity, the technicians actually work at what they do, especially for the older customers who may have cracked skin or pockets of infection,” she says.
Rinehart said she was amazed at how beautiful and spotlessly clean the new shop is.
“I’ve been in a lot of nail spas. The Phans do an outstanding job. A lot of places just don’t,” said Rinehart.
On the list of services offered in addition to spa pedicures and manicures that include a hand and arm massage, are facials and waxing, neck and shoulder massages, acrylic or gel nails and a nearly hour-long deluxe pedicure that Rinehart describes as “like being in heaven.”
“I get a kick, as an outsider, seeing people come in looking really stressed,” she says. “You watch them settle in to the massage chairs and before long their eyes start to close. You can literally see them unwind.
According to Rinehart, quite a few men come in for manicures, too.
“People tend to think this is just for women, but many men really enjoy it. For those who can’t get past the shyness, it’s their loss,” she says.
At $35 for a manicure and pedicure, Serenity Nails’ pricing is competitive as well.
Fan – who changed the spelling of his last name for ease of pronunciation when he became a U.S. citizen – is Phan’s brother and lives in Arcadia, where he owns another nail spa.
The rest of their large family, scattered from Florida to California., are all in the nail and spa business, after the entire family was brought to the U.S. by an American government official, a few years after the Vietnam war.
“I met Kim at another shop where she did my nails a few years ago,” Rinehart recalls. “I got to know her and met her daughter and sisters. They’re just a really nice, loving family.”
Serenity Nails
