A Cut Above

Ray Escobar '12 and Fabio Sanchez '12

A Cut Above: Ray Escobar ’12 and Fabio Sanchez ’12

When Ray Escobar ’12 and Fabio Sanchez ’12 met at UC’s New Student Orientation in 2008, they knew instantly they’d become friends. Both grew up in nearby neighborhoods in the Bronx, New York, and were into similar music. They later pledged Lambda Sigma Upsilon together and became members of BOND.

“We experienced so much together at UC, we’re like brothers,” says Sanchez.

After graduation, the friends remained close as they moved back to New York and started their careers; Sanchez as a financial manager at Ernst and Young in Manhattan, Escobar as a property manager for a Bronx-based real estate company.

“Ray is the dreamer with the wild ideas, and I’m the finance guy who is more realistic,” says Sanchez. “We always said that we’d make great business partners.”

So in summer 2017, when Escobar learned of a property for sale in a prime location in his Bronx neighborhood, he approached Sanchez with an idea: to transform the spot into an upscale salon for men, an alternative to the bare-bones barber shops in the area. After examining the financial and legal details, Sanchez was onboard.

“We wanted to do something different, more high-end,” says Escobar. “Men want to feel like they look clean and sharp, and that gives them that boost of confidence.”

Sanchez and Escobar purchased the location and set out to create a salon that offered men in the Bronx the type of upscale experience more common in Manhattan, but for a more reasonable price. As a bonus, a salon would be a relatively low-maintenance investment for the business owners, who planned to keep their day jobs, since individual stylists work as independent contractors and promote themselves.

“We just provide the platform,” says Sanchez.

After a year of meetings, negotiations, and “lots of legal details,” says Escobar, Level Up Grooming Studio opened in June 2018. The response, says Sanchez, has been “fantastic.”

“We went from two stylists to four, and the clients keep coming in,” says Escobar, who is already thinking up creative new ventures for Level Up, such as partnering with local charities for events or starting a podcast.

But, as usual, his buddy and business partner helps keep his creativity in check.

“I tell him we need to focus on building the business now,” says Sanchez, with a laugh. “Then we’ll think about those other things.”