New Kendall Park Salon Returns Owner to Her Roots

There's an old saying that all roads lead back home, but some roads just take us longer.

South Brunswick native and small business owner Donna DePinto traveled down many roads since leaving the township in the early 1980's, but finally ended up back home last month with the grand opening of her full service salon's new location in Kendall Park. D'Bella by Donna, located at 3171 Route 27 in the former Urgent Care facility, offers a wide range of services with expertise in the latest trends in fashion, hair color, styling and make-up.

"Our customers are walking business cards for us and they help spread the word that we're a warm, caring, creative and diverse salon," DePinto said. "We specialize in everything, including diverse ethnic creations, whether you're caucasian, African American, Indian or any other ethnicity. Our customers are very loyal. You don't have to go to New York City when you can stay in New Jersey to find a salon like ours."

"I also did some covers for romance novels from Zebra Publications. My last cover was for a book called 'When You Wish," which you can still buy at Barnes and Nobles in the wholesale bin, and I can autograph it for you," DePinto said with a laugh. 

DePinto would continue following her big city dreams as a promotional coordinator for brands like Armani and Drakkar, before investing in a restaurant right under the Brooklyn Bridge in 1990. DePinto would part from the business in 1994 as she returned to this area to follow a new career path, attending vocational school in East Brunswick to obtain her hairdresser's license.

After working locally for the salon now known as Salon NV, DePinto decided to open her own salon in Franklin Park, the first D'Bella by Donna in 2002. After over a decade, she found herself wanting for a better location while facing the economic challenges of the ongoing recession.

"I was in my 11th year there not knowing which direction to go," she said. "You have families that work for you and you don't want to say that you're closing your doors. I was always a pursuer and I didn't want to let my own dream be let down, or see families not have work. But I was also scared for me and my own family."

Soon thereafter, DePinto stopped at the Quick Chek on Route 27 for coffee and saw a for sale sign on the Urgent Care facility. With fears about her Franklin salon closing due to issues with the location, DePinto soon called the landlord and found herself back in South Brunswick, where her journey originally began.

"I emptied all my finances and put it back into the business," DePinto said. "I took everything I had and I put it on the line for the beautiful salon you see today."

As a South Brunswick native, DePinto said she fully embraces the township's cultural diversity and caters to any and all needs from the community.

"We have a loyal base in the Indian, Pakistani, and Muslim communities, among others. We provide privacy for Muslim women where they can come in and be pampered in our privacy rooms," she said. "Some women don't know which direction to go, where they want to go to salons relative to their culture, but at the same time want to develop what it means to be American. Either way our salon can give it to them. There is no 'no' to what we can do. Some people don't know how to react to the cultural change in South Brunswick. We embrace it."

Ultimately, DePinto said returning home allows her to bring to her customers the same loyalty and values she learned on her travels away from, and back to, South Brunswick.

"Whether a woman walks out of here and feels like they found their inner beauty, or a gentleman walks out of here and feels his hair was cut exactly the way he wanted it, we're all about improving someone else's self image," she added. "We want to give back to them exactly what they walked into our salon for."