Doesn’t it just feel like it’s been forever since we’ve walked into a Chicago nail salon? In honor of National Nail Business Week (Oct. 7 to 13), we found the entire staff of the very chic, trendy Meghan’s Nail Bar where we learned that in fact, it is (and always has been) an open-checkout, nonstop business. They took us inside the Chicago Nail Institute to show us how business has been done for years, and a lot of it — hundreds of thousands of dollars — has been coming directly from social media.

Elena Arlen: It’s been 10 years since I opened the first nail salon. I was originally going to have an interior design business where I basically went into homes and did it for them. I had a nail salon first to do that, and then when people could afford it, they also asked for it. People were throwing $500 in my pocket with the expectation that I would design something special and do a redo. I said, ‘I don’t have that much time, so I’ll just do it for you and get out of your hair.’ It started from there.

Markia Ritchie: I had started a beauty pageant in Chicago and in the process of getting that, was flirting with social media. I was a hotel manager and I said to my barber, ‘I think I should post that on my social media.’ It’s what we do now. My hair and nails were discovered by a YouTube personality, Christopher Esposito, and the video went viral. The news article I did — her name was Naly Gonzalez. It became viral.

Arlen: I started because I was very particular about the fact that I had never seen my nails done in person before, and I was married with three kids at the time. I kept my day job as a designer.

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Odoitees Meier: My company, Make it Hype, was started in 2005. All the partners in that company came out of the beauty space. My business partner, Sean Denton, is going to be featured in an episode of American Inno.

Arlen: What I liked about the Nail Institute is that we kept the day job but had this 24/7 business. We can’t think about that because we are running into another nail artist who wants to know how long they’ll be open, or who wants to talk with our sales director. It’s no time to take a vacation.

Meghan Macpherson, cofounder: So that’s why the salon would be open when there’s anything going on in other parts of the city or in the world. It’s a 24/7 place, so we don’t need to be home to think about our clients.

Ritchie: It was really important to me to make sure the nail studio was a magical place where you felt like you were going to be pampered.

Sarah Arnott: We do it through the seasons. In the winter, we don’t have groomers on every other week because we are always open. We do it by appointment only because we know the clients need it. But there’s still so much more we can do in the shape up services — nail art, manicures, pedicures, facials, affirming cocktails!

Arlen: If I can make people’s day, they’ll come back and remember it forever.

We don’t have any paychecks yet, but we are certainly donating our tips and commission to charities, whether through the American Cancer Society or Habitat for Humanity.

POPSUGAR: Thank you so much for bringing this into our community. We were thinking about asking you guys to come in here and tell us what you have going on. Can you talk a little bit about how social media has impacted your work?

Arlen: Social media has completely changed how people think about an open-checkout business, how people know the name of the salon, how you can tell when people are coming in. You can see what kind of nail art they’re wearing. You get this community you can click into that you can get to know.