Fashion / Cheltenham Road
New ‘piercing parlour’ to open
Poquito Coffee has been at 116 Cheltenham Road for over a year now.
When it opened, owner Sam Janes quickly filled the space that used to be Emmeline cafe but wasn’t quite sure what do with the large basement below.
He decided to reach out to a childhood friend, George Bestall, who he had grown up with 25 years ago in Cheltenham and who had recently moved to Bristol after a brief stint living in London.
is needed now More than ever
They had a brainstorm and “just sort of came to piercing”, as George put it.
The owner of Poquito Coffee has been promoting the new venture in store
After they decided on what the basement space would be – a ‘piercing parlour’ – they got a design consultant in to help them fine tune their new business.
Together with the consultant, they decided on pink as a brand colour and settled on the name Cherry Piercing as it fit well with the pink theme.
A new white door on the left hand side of the Poquito storefront now separates the coffee shop from the piercing studio.
After entering via the new door, customers will be greeted by a giant neon pink cherry sign as they make their way down the stairs and to the basement.
There they will be greeted by Carolina, a body piercer from Colombia.
Carolina, who has been piercing for around eight years and has experience doing piercings across “almost all of Latin America”, currently works at No Regrets, a tattoo and piercing studio further along Cheltenham Road.
On Carolina, George said: “Carolina has hundreds of ideas and it was great to work with her from the beginning – she’s helped direct it (the business) to where it is now.”
The team is filled out by George’s wife, Lucy, who is in charge of Cherry Piercing’s social media content.
A pink neon cherry sign greets visitors as they make their way down to the basement
Anyone who signs up to Cherry Piercing’s mailing list before its opening day on Saturday will be entered into a competition to win a £250 jewellery and piercing voucher. Future promotions and offers will also be advertised through the mailing list.
Although body piercing will be their bread and butter, Cherry Piercing’s founders also hope to provide a tooth gem service in the near future.
As the shop’s piercing licence also covers tattooing, Cherry Piercing may one day offer tattoos too.
As the team get ready to finally open their doors after weeks of hard graft behind the scenes, George is hopeful Cherry Piercing will have a great first day on Saturday.
He said: “We’ve got a notice board up in Poquito and, as soon as we put it up, everyone was like, ‘When are you opening? ‘ When are you opening?’
“So, we think maybe this is going to be a thing!”
All photos: Seun Matiluko
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