Flex + Fit Offers Members On-Site Culinary Classes

Often members don’t understand the importance of proper nutrition to achieving results in the gym. Well, Flex + Fit, a club in Charlotte, N.C., is looking to change all that, in a way that makes learning fun for members, and also has become a great profit center. The facility features an on-site instructional cooking kitchen, with an array of culinary classes available to the club’s members. Executive chefs teach members how to prepare healthy, tasty meals that are both quick and easy.

“[It’s] an all-around approach to a healthy lifestyle,” said Shama Patel, the president of Flex + Fit. “We really are the only club that does cooking classes on-site.”

Culinary classes have been offered since the club’s founding in June 2011. “Basically, I left corporate America, and realized nobody [in a health club setting] offered cooking classes,” Patel said. “And, it’s such an essential part to getting results.”

Fully-functioning kitchen aside, Flex + Fit is not your traditional health and fitness club. “We are class-based,” Patel said. The club features four studios with boutique-style classes. “We like to balance a unique cooking experience with unique classes,” she said.

According to Patel, it was “pretty easy” to include cooking classes in the club’s blueprint. She also enlisted the help of Johnson and Wales University, teaming up with the College of Culinary Arts to create an internship program within Flex + Fit’s on-site kitchen. “The culinary school was ecstatic,” she said.

Flex + Fit hosts three interns per year, who do everything from assist the executive chefs (who cook at popular restaurants in the area) to teaching their own classes. “[Finding interns] wasn’t hard,” Patel said. “What was challenging was getting a big, executive chef.” But, once these chefs learned of the great exposure that came with these classes, they were on board. “It’s great for them, too,” Patel continued.

Each cooking class features a different chef. “For instance, one week the chef from The Cowfish (Charlotte, N.C.) will come in and teach a class, and the next week, the chef from Chima Brazilian Steakhouse (Charlotte, N.C.) will teach,” Patel said. Flex + Fit has hosted chefs from Terrace Cafe, Aquavina and Enso Asian Bistro, among others. While these chefs are instructing the class, “the interns play sous chef.”

In terms of variety, “we do everything,” Patel said. For every new culinary class, not only will the members get a new chef, but a new menu as well. “The whole premise is to teach a healthy alternative of something on your menu,” she said. For instance, the chef from The Cowfish would teach members how to cook a low-calorie dish at home, while they could also order the same meal at full-caloric intake at the restaurant in Charlotte, N.C.

As expected, “these classes are pretty popular,” Patel said. The program is also on an RSVP-only basis, ensuring “there are no extra or empty seats,” she said. And, as far as cost is concerned, “it depends on the class. Intern-based classes are about $20, executive-based $65 and private $85.”

With the skyrocketing popularity of Flex + Fit’s cooking classes, Patel plans to incorporate them into her new aerial fitness venture, called AIR. Two locations are set to open in Chicago by the end of this year, with more to follow. She describes them as a “streamlined” version of Flex + Fit. “They will be free-standing studios,” Patel said. “Only fitness classes will be offered at the studio.”

The cooking classes will be offered through these new studios as well, but will be located off-site. Instead of hosting classes in an on-site kitchen, Patel has recently partnered with local Chicago restaurants to host healthy, hands-on classes led by an executive chef within their restaurants’ kitchens. “I always want to incorporate cooking classes at any place I open,” she said. “That’s my whole concept.”

Patel’s advice to other health and fitness club owners looking to try this new concept? “Good luck to them,” she said.

By Sam Rogers