Not 'just a hairdresser': Family, friends mourn loss of longtime hairdresser Salvatore 'Sal' Arcuri

WORCESTER – A black awning that tunnels into a gray June Street building, with white lettering displaying the number 108, leads to Arcuri Moda, a hair salon that some might simply see as just another option in the city for an overdue haircut.

But for the family members of owner Salvatore “Sal” Arcuri, his colleagues and even regular customers, the shop is the legacy of the longtime hairdresser, who died Jan. 21 at 60.

“He was well liked, my brother,” said Santo Arcuri, 66. “He went out of his way to pay attention to everyone, especially if people were going through a hard time.”

Arcuri's two golden-colored shears, combs and other tools are still where he last left them, waiting for the next customer on the counter across a black leather chair — his work area of more than 25 years.

Pamela “Pam” Tresca, his eldest daughter, having taken over since her father’s death, said his tools will be retired, although his presence is felt in a business that he built purely out of his own vision, starting in 1997, when he opened the doors to the shop with partners.

“He loved to help people, even like in his hardest times,” said Tresca. “In the last three years of his illness, no one knew about.

“They’d ask, ‘Hey Sal, how are you doing?’ ‘Good. I'm good. How about you?’ and he could have been feeling awful.

“I’ve thought, ‘He was just a hairdresser,’ but he wasn’t just that.”

It was not easy for Santo Arcuri to speak about his younger brother Tuesday as he stood in Arcuri’s workspace.

When asked about the memories they shared, the 66-year-old tried to pick out “of the so many.”

Although his face lit up, he stopped short of sharing. Clearly overtaken with emotion, he lowered his head just enough so it was covered by the visor of his baseball cap and walked to another space inside Arcuri Moda.

“Sal,” as Arcuri was known by everyone, was Santo's younger brother who followed him in his footsteps.

At Capelli Avanti Salon, which Santo started on Elm Street in 1978, it was where Arcuri learned the trade of hairdressing. That business is also where some of the moments where Santo remembers their best memories coming from.

With eyes having gained a crystal shine, Santo tried again to relive moments from long ago.

“Me and him did a lot of things together,” said Santo. “The business was different. It used to be a lot of fun.

“I miss those days. We’d go to shows by flying all over the country. We had a good time.”

Some of Santo’s words are accented with the reminder of the Arcuri family’s origins from the Calabria region in southern Italy, from where the Arcuri family immigrated in 1969.

The brothers grew up in the area, with Santo starting out in business, first as a restaurateur and later starting with beauty salons.

Along with friends who they became business partners with, they branched out to June Street in 1997, opening Adesso in the same space that in 2011 became Arcuri Moda.

Arcuri’s assistant, Rozana Balla, who was self-described as Arcuri’s “right hand,” showed the last text messages she and her boss of five-and-a-half years exchanged as Arcuri was nearing the end, pointing to messages decorated with smiling emojis and positive thoughts, that to Balla was a show of Arcuri’s benevolence.

Balla, who moved to Worcester with an experience of 30 years in hairdressing from her native Albania, said she connected with Arcuri through friends as she looked for employment.

“He hired me on the spot, the moment he saw how I was holding the comb and scissors,” said Balla, telling the story not as praise for her skill but as a show of how appreciative Arcuri was for good work.

“He was a great person,” she added.

The chair across from Arcuri’s is rented by Anong Bounphasaysonh, a hairdresser who the last two of her 32 years of experience were spent at Arcuri Moda.

As a show of Arcuri’s fairness, Bounphasaysonh, said that Arcuri offered one of the chairs in the salon for her to rent after she was left unemployed following the shuttering of a salon she had previously worked in.

Bounphasaysonh’s choice was the chair right behind the one where Arcuri worked, something he accepted without a second thought.

“I wish I’d had known him for much longer,” said Bounphasaysonh. “He was such a great person to work with, caring and generous.

“He treated people equally, making everyone feel special.”

When asked about his brother’s personality, Santo pointed to the amount of people who paid their respects at his wake, estimating a turnout of about 1,500 people.

Tresca added that he even ran a "cut-a-thon" to raise funds for breast cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS, patients.

“We started the wake 30 minutes early,” said Tresca. “We stood up from 3:30 to 7:30 nonstop.

“It was unbelievable.”

In the last three years, Arcuri had been suffering from stage four cholangiocarcinoma, something that his daughter said didn’t stop him from playing bocce, one of his favorite pastimes which he developed playing with his father, Angelo, who died in December at 94.

Santo added that the family will organize a golf tournament, another one of Sal’s favorite pastimes, to raise money for cancer patients.

“They always had a good time playing together,” said Santo.

That chair where Arcuri worked will now be Tresca’s, who is thought of as her father’s “twin” at the shop.

She said Tuesday that the shop would be something she carries with pride and responsibility to continue in his style of work and devotion.

“At first it was a hard thing and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be here because it was so difficult, especially while he was in the hospital,” said Tresca. “When I came to take his shears for the wake, I sat in his chair and I cried and cried.

“And then I thought, ‘OK. I’ll do it.’

“Every time I come here now, I say, ‘OK, Ba, we’re here.’”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Family, friends mourn loss of longtime hairdresser Salvatore Arcuri