Bathhouse is bringing 36,000 square feet of Bitcoin-powered pools and ‘party’ saunas to Philly

A coed bathhouse is opening in Philly. Its business model involves choreographed sauna rituals and Bitcoin-heated pools.

Bathhouse opens on Friday, Sept. 25, at 1418 Walnut St., transforming the Bellevue Hotel’s defunct basement food court into a sprawling facility with three saunas, three pools, a steam room and appointment-only massages. The 36,000-square-foot space is the largest standalone wellness complex in Philly. It’s also the latest in a gambit to rebrand sweating as an activity that is simultaneously sexy and productive.

“Our business is technically a 7,000-year-old business,” said Travis Talmadge, a certified sauna master and Bathhouse’s co-founder. “People have been building hot rooms to sweat in forever, and pools aren’t a new concept ... All we’re doing is bringing the best-in-class” versions of both.

Talmadge and his business partner, Jason Goodman, opened the first Bathhouse location in 2019 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with a mission to repackage the social bathing cultures of Europe and Asia to suit the United States, where bathhouses’ popularity dwindled as the stigma of the AIDS epidemic forced many to close.

After opening another New York City location in 2024, Bathhouse received a $35 million investment from Imaginary Ventures, the investment firm that previously backed beauty brands such as Glossier, Kosas, and Alix Earle’s Reale Actives.

Now, Bathhouse is on an expansion tear. Philly’s location will be the first outside of NYC, with other outposts planned for Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, North Jersey, and Connecticut.

The company’s focus is contrast therapy, or switching between extremely hot saunas and cold baths in a way that’s shown to boost circulation and muscle recovery.

Roughly 1,000 people pass through each of the company’s three NYC locations per day, Talmadge estimated. Most, he said, are focused on decompressing before or after work. Others, he said, use it in place of happy hour with friends. Some are even on dates. None, Talmadge stressed, want a spa.

“Spas really focus a lot more on relaxation and pampering,” he said. “There’s really no pampering [here]. There’s nothing relaxing about sitting in a 200 degree room or a 45 degree pool.”

Bathhouse draws on Russian, Turkish, and German bathing rituals to create a distinct wellness experience.

The Philly location is launching with a steam room and three saunas: a 140 degree infrared one; a 190 degree traditional Russian banya heated by a wood stove; and a large dry room warmed to 180 degrees that Talmadge repeatedly referred to as the “party sauna.” Its lights have “the capabilities of a nightclub,” Talmadge said, since they can change color to match the beat of the music during Bathhouse’s regularly scheduled sauna rituals.

The space also has hot and neutral pools alongside a traditional cold plunge, plus private rooms for full body massages and an on-site cafe for smoothies, beer, natural wine, and light bites. (A rooftop pool and sauna will open in May, Talmadge said.)

Bathhouse is the latest addition to the revamped Bellevue Hotel, which has been rebranded as a swanky hotel with luxury apartments, a vibe-dining restaurant with an $88 baked potato, and the Bellevue Sporting Club, an upscale gym that already has its own set of saunas, steam rooms, and a cold plunge.

Zach Seidman, head of marketing for the Bellevue, called Bathhouse “a complement” to the Sporting Club’s fitness-first offerings. “There’s nothing like it in Philadelphia,” he said.

That’s technically true: For years, Philadelphians looking to sweat it out had to drive to the Russian baths at Southhampton Spa in Bucks County and Chung Dam Spa in Cheltenham to find something that wasn’t a tiny box in the back of a gym. Then, the city had something of a sweat-aissance after the pandemic, with pop-up saunas taking over the American Swedish Historical Museum and Schuykill Center for Envirnomental Education. A 26,000-square-foot “social spa” even opened in Northeast Philly last year, boasting five saunas and a snow room.

In theory, Bathhouse is the cheapest of them all. Day passes at the Philly location start at $29, but are subject to change based on demand and time of day.

Bathhouse is part of a class of wellness hubs that are fixated on providing an alternative to clubbing, based on the premise that young people are spending more on their health and less on drinking.

Some of the company’s competitors, like Othership, are hosting raves, singles nights, comedy shows, and trivia. In Europe, meanwhile, startups are trialing sauna art therapy and concerts with varying degrees of success.

Talmadge said Bathhouse tries to avoid events. Instead, they are singularly focused on hosting aufgusses, a theatrical German ritual wherein a sauna master melts essential oil-doused snowballs on a bed of hot stones. To circulate the scents, the sauna master then whips towels around the room like helicopter blades.

In Philly, Bathhouse will host aufgusses every 90 minutes in — naturally — the party sauna, lead by certified sauna masters. Talmadge, who earned the title in 2021, said each sauna master has their own playbook of tricks meant to evoke a smile, if not some sort of spiritual experience. (His is a double-towel spin mixed with a bit of catch-and-release.)

“Some people really love the aromatherapy and want to see how the scents hit their nervous system,” Talmadge said. “Other people love watching the show and are in it for the tricks ... Everyone has their own experience.”

What, exactly, is powering your Bathhouse experience? Bitcoin, in part.

Since its 2019 founding, Bathhouse has used small on-site data centers of Bitcoin miners to warm its pools and heated seats, extracting excess energy from the machines via pipes. The practice, Talmadge said, has helped significantly cut Bathhouses’ electricity bills while allowing them to make back some money, even as returns from the cryptocurrency have slowed.

“It’s like a rebate,” said Talmadge with a shrug.

If Philadelphians can get past the Bitcoin miners lurking in the background, Talmadge recommends first-timers start with 15 minutes in the gentler infrared sauna. They should also hydrate constantly.

Those looking to maximize their sweat should lay on the top row of the Russian banya, which becomes the hottest point in the bathhouse as the heat rises.

“That’s your belly of the whale,” Talmadge said. “The goal with the saunas is to eventually try to push yourself.”

📍1418 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19102, 💵 $29+, ⏰ 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, 🌐 abathhouse.com/philadelphia