The Club Austin is a high-end wellness festival and fitness experiential concept. It curates premium pop-up wellness events blending mainstage workouts and live DJs with luxury recovery amenities like cold plunges, saunas, open-play padel courts, and high-profile brand showcases.
A Cycling Studio Downstairs, a Coffee Shop and Desks Upstairs
THE CLUB occupies the former Frothy Beard Brewing building on South Graham Street, and it runs as two distinct operations stacked on top of each other. Co-owners Meg Mars and Nicole Paradis built it so a member can take a 45-minute class, shower, and then spend the working day at a desk with a coffee in hand without going outside. In a South End saturated with both fitness studios and coffee shops, combining them under one roof is the thing nobody else here had done.
Four Class Formats on the Lower Level
The bottom floor holds two studios and 38 bikes, and the entire schedule runs on four signature formats, each 45 minutes. RIDE is rhythm-based cycling set to the beat. TRAIN is low-impact weightlifting. PULSE is a heated sculpt class built on mat Pilates principles, and STRETCH is a heated mobility session. That is deliberately narrow — there is no menu of twenty class types to navigate, and members tend to cycle through all four rather than specialize.
The room is lit and scored like a nightclub rather than a gym, which the owners describe as the intended effect. Instructors and assistants help first-timers set up bikes and clip into cycling shoes, a small thing that reviewers raise often because it removes the most common reason people avoid a first spin class.
Coworking That Comes With the Membership
The ground floor is a 30-seat coworking space with a full-service coffee bar pouring Pertinacious Coffee alongside pastries and snacks. Access is included for every member at no extra charge, and anyone with a class booked that day can use it free whether or not they hold a membership. Non-members can buy a day pass. This is the part of the model that changes member behavior: people arrive for a 7 a.m. class and stay until mid-afternoon, which is not how boutique studios usually work.
Monthly Classes Inside an EDM Nightclub
The most unusual thing THE CLUB does happens across the street. Roughly once a month the studio runs pop-up cycle and sculpt classes inside Trio, the EDM nightclub opposite, holding sessions under the dance floor lights with a live DJ. Nothing else in the Charlotte fitness market operates this way, and it has become a signature enough that local press covers the pop-ups separately from the studio itself.
Practical Details for a First Visit
The studio opened in phases, soft-launching cycling classes in winter and holding its grand opening in June 2025 after the lower level was built out. Facilities include lockers, three showers, a changing room, and a stocked dry bar, with gender-neutral restrooms and showers on the fitness floor. Parking is genuinely solved here: more than 45 on-site spaces with passes from the front desk, plus street parking on Graham, which is rare in South End. Free intro classes are available, and pricing runs from class packs to unlimited memberships.
