San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Small studios’ operators seek creative options
Desperate to keep his business afloat, Dave Karraker pushed huge exercise equipment out of his studio in the Castro neighborhood and onto a sidewalk Wednesday. He probably would have thrust a treadmill into four lanes of traffic on Market Street, if he thought it would have helped.
“We’re a small business,” the coowner of MX3 Fitness in San Francisco said. “We’ve got to be scrappy. We can’t just roll over. … We’re fighters. We’re going to keep fighting. They’re not going to take us down easily.”
Gyms were among the first businesses to close in response to the coronavirus pandemic, with some rolling down their gates even before shelterinplace orders went into effect across the Bay Area. Gold’s Gym went bankrupt in May, and 24 Hour Fitness followed this month. But the owners of boutique gyms and studios in San Francisco worry they may never recover from the shutdown.
The San Francisco Independent Fitness Studio Coalition estimates that its 40 members are losing nearly $9 million a month while they remain closed. For them, and their 600 employees, the road to recovery isn’t obvious.
In 2018, Karraker took over a storefront in the Castro that had been vacant for 10 years, an expansion from its original location in the Lower Haight.
Now he’s facing losing both locations, even after getting a Paycheck Protection Program loan and an agreement with his landlord to defer rent until next year.
San Francisco eased restrictions on outdoor workouts in midJune, so Karraker decided to push his gym outside. He got three workout appointments for Thursday and some inquiries about buying cardio passes. It is unclear whether Karraker’s makeshift arrangement violates city rules that ban the use of shared equipment. But after losing 85% percent of his business for the past three months, even some creative, boundarypushing moves won’t stop the bleeding.
“That’s just kicking the can down the road,” Karraker said. Gov. Gavin Newsom let counties opt to reopen their gyms on June 12. The North Bay counties as well as San Mateo have taken advantage of that order, and Contra Costa and Marin counties were set to reopen gyms next week.
Now, amid a rise in infections across the region, Marin and Contra Costa are rethinking their plans. On Friday, San Francisco put a hold on its reopening plan over health concerns, placing the city’s timeline for gyms to resume operations in midAugust in doubt.
Emerald BloomJohnson is worried about her two gyms and one yoga studio, all of which have been shuttered since midMarch.
Started 10 years ago, her Ethos Health on Townsend, near Zynga’s headquarters, is now closed. Business had boomed as more tech companies moved into the area; now she’s wondering whether the industry’s workers will ever return and fill the space. Yoga Beach in the Outer Sunset, profitable for most of the past five years, is closed. She can’t pay rent on her Fit Club in the Outer Richmond and still owes a debt to the previous owner.
“We’re on unemployment, which goes against everything in an entrepreneur’s soul,” said BloomJohnson, who has two young children and coowns the fitness centers with her husband. “We’re doing everything possible to avoid bankruptcy.”
Health officials view gyms with particular concern: Training involves sustained personal interaction, and exercise can cause people to more forcefully expel airborne particles that may be laden with the virus.
JJ Miller, founder of the Firm in Cole Valley, took a different view of things.
“We’re one of the few businesses that improve people’s immune systems,” he said. “If we can do that safely and make them more immune, why wouldn’t you want that?”
Miller has been frustrated by the shifting state and local plans for reopening.
“They had Stage 1, 2, 3, 4.
Then there are substages, like 1A, 2B and 2C,” he said. “It’s like Charlie Brown. They keep taking away the football.”
Billy Polson, the coowner of Diakadi, isn’t waiting for the ball to be moved again. With nearly 100 trainers running their businesses out of his Division Street location, Polson has done tutorials on how to create Zoom sessions.
During the shelterinplace order, he has been able to maintain space for three physical therapists, whose work has not been restricted, netting about 5% of his usual income. He is trying to work with his landlord to defer rent on his 14,000squarefoot facility.
Polson created 12footby12foot boxes — twice the 6foot guidance — throughout his gym. Handheld equipment must be checked out, then placed in a pile for disinfecting.
“A gym now is an analretentive person’s heaven,” Miller said. “It’s so above and beyond a controlled environment, but who knows if it will be enough?”