Saratoga News
News
Photograph by George Sakkestad
The Tsengs are all smiles after reopening Legends Salon at 12175 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. Tanya and Tommy Tseng, married 12 years ago after meeting in Hawaii, reopened in Saratoga after a fire destroyed their salon in West San Jose in February.
Like a phoenix rising from ashes, Legends reopens
By Shannon Burkey
It took Tommy and Tanya Tseng years of hard work and determination to fulfill their dreams of owning a successful business. It took only a few hours for it all to go up in flames.
The couple lost everything on Feb. 3 when their business, Legends Salon, burned to the ground. But the determination that got them to where they were would bring them back once again, and this time to a place they really felt they could call home--Saratoga.
"We were shocked and didn't know what to do," Tanya said. "It was like watching your whole life being destroyed. Something we had worked so hard for was suddenly gone."
The three-alarm fire started in Fatima restaurant, two doors down from the salon in a retail shopping center on the border of West San Jose and Saratoga. It wasn't long before it spread, destroying not only the restaurant but also an interior design business and the salon.
"Our phone kept ringing at 4:30 in the morning," Tommy said. "At first I thought it was a prank call, but then I answered and it was a friend telling me what was happening. I couldn't believe it. I thought he was joking."
Finally it sunk in, though, and the Tsengs rushed to their business, only to watch helplessly as the fire raged.
They knew they would have nothing left once the fire died down, but the two said all they could think about was how soon they could reopen.
They had one stroke of luck. Salon owners live and breathe by their client books. Without those books, contact information on every client would be lost and clients would not know how to find them when they moved.
Nearly everything in the salon was lost, but the eight client books were recovered. Though a little waterlogged and covered in soot, the information was retrievable.
"Those books were our lifeline. We couldn't have continued our business without them. We told the firefighters they were the only things we had to have from inside the salon. We couldn't believe we got them back," Tanya said.
Tommy Tseng's career at the salon started 10 years ago when he worked as a stylist. Six years ago, he and his wife bought the business and it has been their pride and joy ever since.
The same day they watched a fire take it all away from them, Tommy found another location to house the salon temporarily until they could find the right permanent location.
"We couldn't believe Tommy found a place for us that day," stylist Alex Zatarain said. "We all thought he was crazy. Any other owners would have said, 'I can't do it,' but not those two."
Tseng was determined, and one fire wasn't going to stop him. As a child in Vietnam, he said he spent time in refuge camps and knew what real hardships were. Having to start the salon all over again wasn't one of them.
"I've always told myself that I don't want to be poor again, so I've worked really hard all my life," he said. "When this happened, I said, 'Everybody has to put food on the table, so we have to move fast.' "
It never occurred to the Tsengs that they might not recover or reopen. And it wasn't only themselves they were thinking about.
The salon rented space to 12 stylists, all of whom were now without a place to work. It was for these people, too, that the Tsengs knew they had to move fast.
Tanya Tseng said her main concern was for her stylists. Without a place to work, she didn't expect them to stay with her and her husband.
But the stylists, who had all become like a family to the Tsengs and each other, wouldn't think of leaving. None of them wanted to break the bond that they had created over the years.
"We really are like a family. To go somewhere else would be to take on a whole new group of people who have no understanding of what we've been through," Zatarain said. "With Tommy and Tanya, I found a home that I want to stay in. I told them there is no way I'm going to lose you now that I've found you."
Stylist Andi Bardwell first came to the salon eight years ago, before the Tsengs took over. After the fire, she said she was devastated, but the thought of leaving never crossed her mind.
"They are such honest and hardworking people," she said. "I never considered not staying with them. They have done a fantastic job of keeping us all together. They didn't have to do it, but they did."
Only four days after the fire, the Tsengs were back in business. Although the new location in West San Jose was somewhat run down and in a building slated to be demolished in June, it was a temporary solution that got everyone working again.
"Without everyone here, we could not have moved on, but they wanted to stay so we knew we had to keep going," Tanya said. "For us, without them we couldn't have made it through. They were a shoulder for us to lean on."
The Tsengs and the stylists looked all over for a new location. But it wasn't until they came to Saratoga that they knew they had found what they were looking for.
On May 20, they said they had come home.
The new location at 12175 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road was smaller than before, but Tanya said they were willing to give up the extra space because the feel of the area was just so ideal.
"For some reason, this just feels like home, and I look forward to coming to work every day," Tanya said.
And forward is the only way she said there is to look. She doesn't look at the pictures of the fire and she doesn't dwell on the past. In fact, she has been so busy working on the new place that she hasn't even had a chance to think about what happened.
"I was drained every day until the day that we opened," she said. "I had a tough time dealing with the emotional side of it all, but we can look forward now."
Today it is business as usual at the salon, clients coming and going, scissors snipping away, blow dryers humming in the background. One would never guess that only a short time ago all seemed lost.
"It's like we rose out of the ashes and here we are--and I love where we are," Bardwell said.
