Deuce Tattoos has proven to be a successful endeavour for its owner, Lisa Bickert, who said that her store fills a need in the area. She has managed to carve out a niche for herself. Despite being unsure about the business when she started, the tattoo parlour celebrated its second anniversary April 15.

When asked why she thought setting up a tattoo parlour in Bancroft seemed like a good idea to her two years ago on April 10, Bickert laughed and said, “It didn't!”

At the time, another tattoo parlour in the area had closed. There was nowhere else to go in the area.

Originally from Toronto, Bickert had lived in the area since 2012. She said she took what seemed like a risk at the time and with a lot of hard work, it paid off.

“I designed the shop to be the kind of place that people would want to come into,” said Bickert. “I wanted it to be something that wasn't around. That if I was driving through a small town and if I saw a shop like this, I'd be like, I think I need to go in there. I just wanted to offer the kind of experience that I always wanted when I was a kid. Or what I want when I travel. I just went to Paris, I looked for a shop. I go to New York, I look for a tattoo shop.”

Deuce is known across the country for its talented regular artist, Bronwin Ironsides, whom Bickert says patrons come from as far as B.C to be tattooed by. It also regularly features guest artists that come in from other areas.

“A lot of the people that come here, they tattoo from B.C, or Montreal, or Halifax. You could never get that kind of work done here. So I stay in contact with them and I give them an opportunity to come out here, have a cabin in the woods and tattoo here, while having a vacation and that's kind of captivated an audience of tattooers and people getting tattooed because of that.”

Key to the parlour's success are several factors. In addition to hard work and offering a unique experience, Bickert said that happy employees, heavy online promotion and engagement with the community are very important to her business.

Customers' needs are constantly evolving and with them, so do Bickert's goals for her business. She says it's what keeps the customers coming and with word of mouth being so good she believes that isn't going to change any time soon.

In Deuce's future there may be a nail technician to expand its business opportunities, as well as a barber shop/cigar store with hot shaves.

“It's just about making the shop more and more inviting all the time,” said Bickert.