Ashlan Brown, left, and Alex Davis are the husband-and-wife team who created Sisu Sauna Studio at 26 E. Main St.Though having just opened Sisu Sauna on the Southside, husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Alex Davis and Ashlan Brown already have plans for more.
“The goal is to hit 25 locations,” Davis said.
The Southside location, which opened in late September in John Wise’s new four-story Mission at Main building at the corner of Market and Main streets, is divided up into a half dozen little rooms in which customers lie down inside infrared sauna “pods” for a half hour or 45 minutes. A seventh room has a sauna “cabin” that can be shared.
The price varies, but an introductory “first sweat” 45-minute sauna costs $30.
Customers sweat and their heartbeat increases as their bodies work to cool down beneath the invisible infrared light that’s used to create heat. Then customers cool off in a refrigerated, tile-lined roundish room about the size of a large office cubicle.
“It stops the sweating process; closes your pores,” Brown said.
The couple plan to open another studio here, possibly in North Chattanooga or near Hamilton Place mall. It may have more cabin-style saunas instead of pods, Davis said, and an ice bath instead of a cold room.
Ultimately, they’d like to find an investment group that would buy the Sisu Sauna Studio concept and expand it further. The couple have already pitched the idea to investors in Chattanooga’s startup community.
“There’s been a huge response,” Davis said in terms of customers. The sauna already has days when it’s been near or at capacity, he said.
Saunas are purported to offer a myriad of health benefits, everything from relaxation, detoxification and pain relief to wound healing, cellulite reduction and weight loss.
Weight loss was one of the things that sold Davis on daily saunas. He says he went from weighing 210 pounds to 170 and saw his waistline shrink from 38 to 32 inches.
“I’ve been watching my sugar intake – and a lot of sauna,” he said.
Davis blames being overweight partly on disenchantment with his former career as the owner of two dozen Liberty Tax Service tax-preparation franchises with some 300 employees.
Liberty Tax Service gave the 22-year-old Davis a five-year, $130,000 loan to open his first office in Ringgold near the Ingles Markets supermarket, and while he said he appreciates the help in getting started and the experience he gained, he doesn’t like the franchise model.
After about five years, Davis said, he didn’t need the franchise’s help anymore – but still paid a percentage of his revenue as a royalty.
He and Brown want to offer other locals the same kind of leg up, but without the ongoing franchise royalties or fees. They’d like to build one sauna after another and sell them to hard-working employees outright.
Davis designed Sisu Sauna Studio with the bottom line in mind. Thanks to energy-efficient equipment, the monthly electric bill is only about $270, he said. And it only takes one person at a time to run the business, he said. In its first nine weeks, the sauna already has brought in about $30,000 revenue, he said.
“I feel like we’re killing it,” said Davis.
Email Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com.