PHAROS 3rd Birthday at the Beach and a Rising Tide

This Saturday we celebrated Redondo’s 3rd birthday, so I thought it would be a good time to recap how it happened and give you an honest take on how hard it has been.

Redondo was not planned. By 2022 we had two gyms in operation: Echo Park and Idyllwild. Echo Park, our flagship, had weathered the pandemic and established itself as an icon on the landscape of East LA. Though always a work in progress, its resilience and tenacity against the odds gave us the belief that we were strong enough to expand.

Idyllwild followed after Emylee and I moved to the mountains in 2021 to raise our children. A much smaller gym in a very different environment, it became an important part of our brand and, more importantly, essential to the community up here.

The plan after Idyllwild was up and running was Palm Springs, and we were actively looking. Many of our members from both Echo Park and Idyllwild spent time in Palm Springs and had highlighted the need for “a PHAROS in the desert.” It felt like a natural progression, and one we felt confident in. The building we initially agreed on was actually in Palm Desert, but negotiations with a rather strange landlord didn’t work out, so we went back to the drawing board (a real blessing in hindsight).

While the search continued, I got a call from my long-term friends Jake and Robert, owners of BOLT, everyone’s favorite LA coffee shop and eatery. They themselves had expanded to Hermosa and had been training at a local CrossFit gym they had grown very fond of. CrossFit Games athlete Bethany Flores trained there. The gym was well set up with great equipment and a passionate community. They were excited about it and had spoken very highly of the facility in recent months.

However, the gym had some management issues and was being forced to close down. I spoke to the owner, expressed interest, and agreed to meet and take a look at the space. Emylee and I walked into a great space. A lot of the members were there, and there was great energy about the place. One member, Monica, looked up at me and said, “So what’s up—are you gonna save us?” And that pretty much sealed it.

It’s not so much ego as a savior complex (which I guess could be seen as ego), but either way, the thought of helping a fitness community hold on to a space they clearly cared about appealed to me. We worked out terms with the owner and set about doing something we had never done before.

There is a big difference between building a gym from scratch and taking over someone else’s gym and trying to rebrand. There are pluses and minuses to both. Avoiding build-out costs, changes of use fees, permits, and endless bureaucracy is an obvious huge benefit and can save you a lot of time and money. On the flip side, you are buying someone else’s culture, someone else’s identity, and someone else’s mindset. Influencing that can take time, energy, and financial investment. You are asking a community and a team to believe in you when they have no reason to—because you didn’t build it with them from the ground up. And that’s challenging from both sides.

However, that was far from the biggest hurdle. The biggest hurdle was timing, industry trends, and saturation. Let’s start with timing.

The fitness industry is ever-changing. Concepts and trends come and go. They peak and then they dip. Buying a CrossFit gym in 2023 was very different from starting a CrossFit gym in 2010. In 2010 it was a rising tide. It had momentum, excitement, an obsessive cult following, and athletes with a physical capability never before seen—especially the women. It had given rebirth to the barbell, to Olympic weightlifting, to gymnastics, to high-level conditioning. People forget, but prior to 2008 you did not find these elements in commercial gyms. It was masterful in its simplicity and gave birth to a new generation of gym owners who didn’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive machines. You needed 2,000 square feet, barbells, a rower, and a box. It was raw, it was underground, it was Fight Club, and it was the middle finger to corporate “Globo Gyms.” Which felt cool.

But this wasn’t 2010. CrossFit had had multiple PR disasters, ownership issues, sponsorship issues, cancellations, and operational concerns that brought the business model into question. Many learned the lesson that turning your hobby into your work is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Add logistics, payroll, bills, rent, taxes, long days, unsociable hours, and another box opening down the street into the equation, and you have more problems than your dreams accounted for. The business that started the “group fitness” trend now had competition from OrangeTheory, Barry’s Bootcamp, F45, and a host of other franchises all battling it out for the same market. The competitors also had a lower barrier to entry—less complicated, lower skill, less risk—meaning they had access to a broader market. CrossFit relied on people willing to suffer greatly for their results: the hardcore, the “300,” the die-on-your-shield crowd. The competitors turned it down a notch, softening the message and adding shiny corporate marketing. They wrapped up “tough” in a shiny brochure and sold it to the masses in a way that would make them feel safe and comfortable while still “working hard.”

What once sold itself became something you had to try to sell—something you had to convince people of.

Interestingly, we inherited a lot of badasses who were not ready to soften. We wanted to keep these people happy. At the same time, we needed growth. There’s a reason why the “300” were only 300. There’s a limited number of savages in any demographic. Fortunately we had BUILD, our original and proven “Functional Hypertrophy” class. It allowed you to build more muscle with strength and still scratch that CrossFit itch. It wasn’t a replacement but a brother that could walk beside you in a different outfit. I believe both have a time, a place, and a purpose. The key is to truly understand what does what and why. If you program both intelligently and progressively, you kind of have the perfect blend.

These two flagships would need to set sail in a crowded ocean. The South Bay is saturated with group fitness facilities. Every street, every corner, with a new one opening every month while others close. Often it’s a race to the bottom with everyone undercutting the other, all promising “better.” But our faith is in quality—of programming, coach, and facility, and ultimately in results. It’s a harder sale because you are playing the long game. It’s easier to sell a shiny locker room than a three-month journey, but we have to believe in what we are selling. PHAROS is a gym built by gym people, not designers and marketing companies. Our focus is on our pillars of Mechanics, Strength, and Conditioning. They are based in substance over style. We are here to change you, not sell you a fake watch.

After three years we are still fighting to bring this message home. I call Redondo a “high performer gym.” Our flagship classes, with the addition of HYROX, draw in all levels, but people who are willing to work for their results. They are people who are hungry to learn and grow and push themselves. They are people who crave human connection and the rising tide of collective human effort. It can’t be faked. It can’t be manufactured. It’s not an app. We have perhaps the biggest and best-equipped gyms in the South Bay, but more than that we have a group of people who will force you to get better. In the end you become who you hang around, and these are the people you want to hang around.

As we stood on the beach this weekend we took a breath. We are still here believing. We are still here investing in our community and our coaches, knowing that we will outlast and outshine if we can stay true to our principles and keep delivering the best of ourselves. Our future is not defined by trends or manufactured PR slogans. It’s defined by our passion, knowledge, and ability to deliver the product that you need—the fitness experience that doesn’t just make the gym better, but that makes your lives better.

Thanks to all of you who have been with us on this journey—supported us, championed us, represented us, and helped us in all the ways. It means so much to us.

See you in the gym,

PV