NuBest Salon and Spa marks 50 years in Manhasset

Dream big. That’s what Michael Mazzei, 83, did 50 years ago when he signed a 99-year lease on the entire out-of-business department store Best & Co. in Manhasset with the goal of turning it into a first-class hair and beauty destination.

Testifying to Mazzei’s talent, intuition and chutzpah, today’s nuBest (as in new Best) Salon and Spa is a beauty hive employing more than 100 hairstylists, colorists, nail technicians and aestheticians, fulfilling thousands of appointments each week, in a vast 20,000-square-foot space.

NuBest officially opened on June 19, 1973 (Mazzei’s birthday), then selling clothing along with providing beauty services. “You could get your nails done, hair cut, colored, buy a new outfit and go out on the town,” says Mazzei’s son, Jamie, 54, who has assumed the day-to-day operations of the business along with his cousins, Vincent Cascio, 55, and Christian Fleres, 47. Even Jamie's son, Marco, is on track to make his way into the business, working toward becoming a hairdresser.  

For his part, Mazzei says, “I am truly grateful. Half a century later the business is still thriving [and] what is even more important to me is that my family is keeping the legacy going. My dream has come true … We are now three generations.” 

START OF THE DREAM

Within a few years of singing the property lease, Mazzei clipped the clothing and expanded hair and beauty services into adjacent spaces — a former gym and a clothing shop — breaking through walls, creating a separate color department and building out a spa. In the early '80s, Mazzei sought a more jazzy, modern look for the facade and hired architects to design what still stands today, a gleaming, silvery structure that beckons beauty seekers.

Lightning (metaphorically) struck in 1984 when an article in the New York Times suggested that some of the most sophisticated Manhattanites were heading there for the reasonable prices and the quality and breadth of services. After it ran, “My father had to pull people in off the street just to answer phones,” recalls Jamie. It was the same year that the movie “Desperately Seeking Susan” filmed its opening sequence with Rosanna Arquette at the salon. In the '90s, Mazzei developed a line of haircare products called ARTec, with the former creative director of his color department, Leland Hirsch, and sold it to L’Oreal.

Mazzei’s journey into the hair business was uncharted. He arrived in Queens  as an Italian immigrant at the age of 14, started working at a soda shop, and became interested in hair by way of an uncle who was a barber. He enrolled in cosmetology school and, never having finished high school, began to work in the business, subsequently opening his own shops under the name of Ultissima (11 across Long Island and Queens) and even started his own beauty school. 

But, while successful, he was spread too thin, and wanted consistency. 

That compelled him to consolidate and sell the businesses, leaving room to focus solely on nuBest. “He had a true sense of what was coming,” says Jamie. “It was a pivotal time in history for hair. Salons were going unisex; perms were popular and the era of Studio 54 and Saturday Night Fever was closing in. He wanted to move away from weekly sets” (rollers, bubble bonnet dryers), “and have all his stylists cut in the same way.” He developed a trainee program for aspiring hairstylists starting them at the sinks washing hair, assisting the pros and ultimately “graduating” to having their own chairs. That program is still in place. Jamie’s son Marco, 19, is his assistant.

'CUTTING EDGE'

It hasn’t all been easy. The senior Mazzei was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2011. Jamie donated one of his kidneys to his dad in a successful transplant procedure. The pandemic set everybody back on their heels. “We spent the time we were closed figuring out how we could safely open,” says Jamie. They removed half the salon’s chairs to create distance between customers, installed a check-in station apart from the main salon where temperatures were taken, and offered disposable smocks and chair covers. During that period, Jamie and Cascio worked in a tent at North Shore University Hospital in Manhassest to give doctors and staff free haircuts.

Many original clients have remained loyal. Judith Proctor of Commack started getting her hair cut at nuBest in 1973 when it first opened.

“I am telling you the truth — no one has ever cut my hair on Long Island besides Michael and now Jamie.” She also brought her husband and son into the fold there.

Yvonne Roth, 85, of Great Neck, got her first 'do there 48 years ago. “Michael is a visionary. It was a very different time when I started to go there. I was used to a small shop and this was so exciting, I told all my friends about it.”

Through the decades there have been hair trends aplenty. From the feathery locks of Farrah Fawcett in the '70s to the big hair of the '80s to the smooth, textural layering style known as the Jennifer Anniston in the '90s to Victoria Beckham’s longer in the front stacked bob in the 2000s. Through it all, Jamie believes that nuBest has maintained a “cutting edge.”

To celebrate the half-century anniversary, the salon will party with free food and drinks, welcoming clients and friends on June 16 and 17. Says Jamie, “I’m so proud of what my family has accomplished. My father is such an inspiration to me. There’s no one like him in the industry. He’s truly one of a kind and his shoes can never be filled.”

NuBest, 1482 Northern Blvd., Manhasset, 516-627-9444, nubestsalon.com.