New London - The city's once-thriving Jon Roberto Salon & Spa, out of business for about seven years, is making a dramatic and unexpected comeback.

The two original owners, Jon Kornicki and Robert Silva, have passed on, but a third partner, Edward McManus, decided at age 74 that he was tired of retirement and ready for a new challenge. Besides, he said, the building on Montauk Avenue that Kornicki and Silva left to him had been empty for about a year, and new salon owner Becky Brown - who had previously bought the name and ran the business for a time - was ready to take another swing at operating a salon.

"When I asked her what she wanted to call it and she said 'Jon Roberto,' I started to cry," McManus said.

"I've been wanting to open a salon," said Brown, "and something kept pulling me back to this spot. It just felt right. It needed to come back."

"She talked me out of retirement," McManus added.

McManus said he tried to sell the property without success.

"It wasn't meant to be," he said. "I was meant to be here and die here."

City resident Ellen O'Donoghue, who remembers the original owners fondly from when she was a regular customer more than three decades ago, said she likes having a convenient spot to go for various services, including the pedicure she received last week.

"I've been going here since 1978, and I love it," O'Donoghue said. "It's the atmosphere - you feel like you're with family."

McManus said Jon Roberto was the first day spa in the city, the first to do pedicures and perhaps the first to do artificial nails - always keeping up with the trends. The salon flourished for about 35 years, before Kornicki retired to Florida with McManus, leaving Silva to run the business for a time - only to have the two retired partners return a year later when a large number of employees suddenly walked out to open their own business.

"This was the city's premier salon," McManus said. "So much of Jon and Bob ... is in this building."

At its height, the salon was so popular that the partners bought two adjoining buildings on Montauk Avenue so they could provide parking for up to 37 vehicles - and the lot was jam packed most of the time, McManus said, because shampoo and sets could last well over an hour.

Since they finally closed up for good nearly two decades ago, he said, the 1,200-square-foot space has seen six other businesses come and go, including three salons that lacked staying power.

Brown maintained many of the original touches, including the arches over the interior entrance and the hairdressing stations. But she gave it an extensive facelift, repainting nearly every surface herself before reopening the salon last month.

"It was just a shell when I first walked in," she said.

The salon has 10 employees, including McManus, who is the senior esthetician, and Denise DeSalvo, a longtime associate of Brown who previously worked at Hair Factor in Groton. The new Jon Roberto salon includes a nail room, a brow and lash bar and upstairs rooms for massage and facial treatments.

"It is all about looking as natural as possible unnaturally," Brown joked as she worked on a customer's hair.

McManus, who said the salon's lash tinting and extensions are a key part of the business rarely offered elsewhere, had a slightly different way of putting it.

“I don't like when something looks fake," he said. "I like it as natural as possible."

Brown has 25 years in the hairdressing business, having managed a salon at the Crystal Mall and also doing work at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base and Foxwoods Resort Casino. She is as comfortable with men's hair as she is with women's, Brown said, and expects a healthy mix of customers. The company has a Facebook page up and running and a website on the way.

O'Donoghue, enjoying a foot soak before her pedicure, still remembers the way Jon Kornicki used to keep customers entertained years ago, and said the new shop retains the same feel.

"Jon had the most incredible personality," she said. "I'd come in and wouldn't stop laughing for two hours.

"I had the best hairdresser in the world, and now Becky's back," O'Donoghue added. "I couldn't be more thrilled. It's all the people I knew, and they're back. It's like coming home."

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow

WHAT: Jon Roberto Salon & Spa

Who: Becky Brown, owner

Where: 196 Montauk Ave., New London

Employees: 10

Phone: 860-447-1771

Hours: 9-6 Fri.-Sat., 9-8 Tues.-Thurs., closed Sun. and Mon.