Name: Why Wellness Clubs Like Bathhouse And Othership Are Becoming America’s 'Third Place'
Uploaded: 2026-03-22T17:46:51.000Z
Duration: 4 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The wellness industry is booming and it's expected to reach a $10 trillion valuation over the next few years.

Luxury gym memberships are all the rage right now.

Adverbs of manner

High end fitness chain Equinox currently boasts a waiting list of more than 1,000 people for its Ultra Premium $40,000 a year membership.

But the success of Equinox and its peers, like Lifetime Fitness are rooted in a growing desire for what's called a third place.

Think about the places you spend time at outside of your home and your job.

For example, Starbucks early success was actually largely built on this premise.

The term third space was first coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg about 40 years ago.

But the definition of third spaces is quickly evolving.

Factors like heightened social media use and of course, the pandemic created a loneliness epidemic.

So over the past few years, as life returned to normal and we reassess our screen time, there's been a more deliberate focus on finding community.

Spas and saunas have of course long been popular, but they're finding new relevancy as community hubs.

Bathhouse and other ship are two companies that have entered the space.

Opened in 2019 and 2020 respectively, both have become hotspots in the New York City wellness scene.

It's entertaining first and foremost, but

there's kind of a Trojan horse of like a deep sense of belonging in the sense that we're going through these difficult things together and like emotional wellness where we can all practice exercising our emotional capacity as a group.

The company has also leaned into the sobriety trend, offering entertainment in an alcohol free atmosphere.

Other Ship hosts dance parties, comedy and live music inside of its saunas.

The aim for Socials is to be like an alternative to how we've come to know socialization.

The bar, the restaurant, the club, often involving alcohol.

It's like a healthy way to socialize and be with one another, to be in our bodies, to be in the present moment together.

Naturally, Othership declined to share any details on its financials, but

Bathhouse told CNBC exclusively that by the end of 2026, it expects to reach around $120 million in revenue.

Community is kind of this thing that happens.

It's not something that we try and preach.

It's not something that we're self righteous about or that we try and design really force on our customers.

It's just kind of this thing that happens and it's kind of a beautiful side effect of the experience of going to Bathhouse.

It's a skincare membership club with locations all across the country.

The CEO told me she's seen the community building aspect grow significantly since its founding 13 years ago.

We recognize that that need has increased tenfold and it can happen in spaces that you didn't traditionally think.

We recognize it's not just the third space of a club, but

what does your club offer the customer and how can the customer then relate to each other based on your offering?

One major drawback of these wellness clubs, the price tag that comes along with many regardless of whether the focus is on fitness, skincare or saunas, will run consumers hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.

These companies are largely privately held, so we don't know a lot about their financials.

However, Lifetime Fitness, which is publicly traded, began doubling down on Premium Wellness a few years ago, and

initially investors were unhappy seeing it spend so much money on the initiative.

Its stock price has more than doubled since October 2023.

And although these types of clubs can be cost prohibitive for many, the past few years have shown us that those who can afford it are often willing to spend.

Listen, peak times are always going to be more expensive.

I think that is part of the challenge of a lot of the small scale operators, right?

Is they kind of have a big fixed cost to cover and so the price can kind of never come down that far.

But you know, we try and make it cheaper for our most frequent customers.

That's basically the business model in a nutshell.