RetroFitness, Colts Neck, NJ, which has positioned most of its clubs along the Eastern seaboard, is heading for the West Coast. More specifically, California.
RetroFitness CEO Eric Casaburi says clubs will be under construction in California as early as the fourth quarter of this year. One franchisee is expected to open clubs in the Bakersfield area, and another group, which includes franchisees from New Jersey and California, is expected to open clubs in the San Jose/Santa Clara County area.
“We’re obviously very excited about this because we’ve been talking about getting across the country sooner than later,” Casaburi says. “We’re excited about California. We understand all the markets there. We’re not headed into [Los Angeles] County tomorrow. We know it’s a pretty saturated market there. We’re kind of cherry-picking the markets that we feel are a good fit for RetroFitness and our brand and to expand our brand.”
Yet another franchisee group, based in San Antonio, has plans to open clubs in the Phoenix and San Diego areas, Casaburi says. Those clubs are expected to open in the first quarter of 2013. Casaburi adds that there has been some interest in the Midwest to open RetroFitness clubs in the Chicago area.
“We feel that the end of 2012 and the first two quarters of ’13 are going to be very, very good for us in the sense of geographic expansion,” he says.
RetroFitness clubs are currently in 10 states. The westernmost state to house a RetroFitness club is Georgia. Most of the company’s clubs are in the New York-New Jersey region, Pennsylvania and the Washington, DC, area. The 81st and newest RetroFitness club recently opened in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
“It was a massive pre-sale and opening week for us,” Casaburi says. “We had a fantastic billboard where you come over the Williamsburg Bridge there and bam! You ran into a RetroFitness $19.99 a month billboard.”