I Had Fun at the Viral Open-Bar Gym—Sue Me!

The neon halos that hang from the ceiling in the lobby of GRIT BXNG bathe the room in the kind of icy blue light more characteristic of a Vegas vodka ice bar than a Manhattan fitness studio. White walls, a white ceiling, and the white, bleacher-like seating magnify the nightclub effect—as does the bedazzled punching bag in the front window and the stairwell that leads to the basement locker rooms, topped by a sign that says “GRIT,” in case you possibly forgot where you are. And the music. Oh my God, the music. 

Waiting around before class, I’m in millennial nostalgia heaven, underage drinking edition. “1, 2 Step” transitions into “Party in the USA,” and before I know it, I catch myself head-bobbing to Flo Rida. But the thing that makes GRIT BXNG feel most like a club is, of course, its full-service liquor bar, outfitted with sparklers and a shotski. At 5:45 p.m. on a Thursday, I arrived at this party-themed workout haven feeling jittery and relatively firm in my resolve to maintain my first Dry January since 2020. I left around 9:00, head cloudy from prosecco and something called an “electrolyte margarita.”

According to GRIT BXNG co-founder Ediva Zanker, the concept is as simple as it sounds: It’s a workout class with a bar, designed to connect people passionate about both. “We were following people from their workout classes, and we saw they were going to brunch with their friends, they were going to get mimosas or drinks post-workout,” she said. “So why wouldn’t we just own the space and have people hang out and meet here?” I’m about 80 times more likely to be at a bar on a Thursday night than wearing boxing gloves, but I was still torn—the little I know about serious fitness seemed to say that drinking post-workout kind of defeated the purpose of exercising in the first place. Would my lust for partying totally nix the benefits of sweating in a room full of strangers?

When GRIT BXNG opened in 2019, the workout studio offered 50-minute boxing-oriented high-intensity interval training classes, plus the bar as a space for post-class socialization. (For the record, it’s pronounced “Grit Boxing,” although the longer I stay after class, the more I catch myself asking someone what they like about “Grit Bang,” the pronunciation I made up in my mind.) The studio also hosts corporate events, birthday parties, and specialty nights with themes like Après-Ski. They also offer occasional perks for members, like a masseuse for post-class rubdowns. More recently, the studio gained a hit of virality when Leia Jospé, talent scout of deranged TikToks, tweeted a screen recording of an ad for the HIIT class, which plugged the studio as a place for single people to meet that special someone who exercises but also “gets down on the weekends.” “Quite literally cannot imagine anything worse,” Jospé wrote.

Before I arrived at GRIT BXNG, I could definitely imagine worse things than post-workout drinks—I’d actually been served the same Instagram ad, recently, and thought it was funny. Still, I expected the experience to be harrowing. It would be my second post-pandemic fitness class, but only because I took a yoga class the day before in preparation. I even invited a friend, eager for company in unfamiliar territory. I was worried about pulling a muscle, worried about sticking out in a crowd of people fitter than me, and worried about what to wear from my wardrobe painfully devoid of cute workout gear. In short, I was anxious, and walking into a space that looked like something out of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City did not do wonders for my nerves. 

The crowd for my 6:30 p.m. class skewed heavily female—most of the men attending seemed to be accompanied by a woman. The only guy I chatted with before class described the workout as “if Barry’s Bootcamp and Rumble had a baby,” a phrase that was basically meaningless to me. He works as a sales representative for a bank, and he told me he brings potential clients to GRIT BXNG with him on his employer’s dime. “People have families, they don’t want to be out until 2 in the morning on a weeknight,” he said. “This way, we do something fun, but it isn’t too crazy.” “Oh, cool, like Mad Men?” I said. He grimaced at the comparison.

A few minutes before class, our instructor, David Pegram, walked around the lobby and introduced himself to everyone with a firm handshake and a smile that looked even brighter in the nightclub lighting. I learned after class that Pegram himself is sober, but he appreciates the space and the connections it fosters. “It was hilarious—I came here and I was like, ‘What the fuck is this place?’” he said. “But once I started working here and I saw the sense of community it fosters, I was kinda blown away. Here’s the truth: A lot of people think that this place, you come here, get shitfaced, and then box. It’s the opposite. You box, then half the people don’t drink. And the people who do—I’ve never seen people leave super sloppy, but I have seen people make friends. People will come here, make four friends, then come back with those four friends, which is fire.”

There were about 50 students, and we assumed our positions in a studio lit by those same glowy halo lights, which would cycle during the workout through different jewel tones, reds and purples and greens and blues. There were three giant screens: two that would show instructional videos for boxers and class members working with weights on the floor, and one, behind our instructor, for vibes. Where there wasn’t a screen or a mirror—because, come on, of course there were mirrors—a dark, foamy material lined the walls, like soundproofing in the booth at a recording studio. Then, with a few lines of instruction from Pegram, it began.

The class was broken up into sections—boxing, weights, and treadmill, on rotation—so the 50 minutes passed by faster than I feared they might. As a first-time boxer, the workout was objectively hard: I spent more time trying to remember the difference between a hook and an uppercut than drinking in the scenery. Pegram left the stage and walked between the punching bags, making vague but reassuring comments like “OK!” and “Let’s go!” When he reached me, I couldn’t even pause to look at him, lest I lose my grip entirely. In my brief flashes of lucidity, my main thought was that the experience reminded me of the room where Will Ferrell’s evil fashion designer brainwashes Ben Stiller in Zoolander—an impression that solidified as the screen behind Pegram burst into digitized flames in order to encourage us to do more crunches or something.

After a brief cooldown, Pegram gave each sweaty participant a friendly fist bump, and we filed into the lobby. Vic Rosso, the bartender and GRIT BXNG’s “Director of Mood,” offered everyone a tray of shots of the aforementioned, milky blue electrolyte margarita. Behind the bar, he filled champagne flutes clutched between his teeth and grinned as he passed them out to the small gaggle of women who gathered around the bar to watch him. A few minutes later, he pulled me into a tight hug, tilted my chin up, and laughed as he poured a bottle of prosecco down my throat before moving on to his next willing target. Later, he motioned my friend and I over to a waiting shotski, mercifully filled with prosecco instead of liquor. Did I already mention I felt like I was in Real Housewives of Salt Lake City?

When I pulled Rosso aside during a lull in the action, he informed me that the atmosphere around the bar was his creation, as were the drinks: sugar-free, low on juice, high on electrolytes, for recovery purposes. He got his start bartending at his family’s restaurant on the Lower East Side, and applied that, plus his penchant for getting people rowdy, to his job at GRIT BXNG ever since it opened. Tall, muscular, and soon-to-be shirtless, it was easy to believe him. “It’s about the environment—meeting people, dancing, smiling, having a good time,” he said. “How do I describe the vibe? It’s phenomenal. It’s unique. It’s the only place like this in the world. People love it.”

Far from the legion of work hard, party harder Adonises I was afraid of, the crowd was disarmingly normal and friendly—people who live in Manhattan and work for the kind of companies that spend money on team-building exercises for their employees, the type I’d expect to meet at a networking happy hour. Mimi and Sam, two of my shotski companions, said they found GRIT BXNG through friends pre-pandemic and have assembled a group that attends at least one class every week, with dinner after. “The people who work here are super nice,” Sam said. “Even though it may be intimidating at first, everybody is super warm and supportive of each other.” “And you still get to get your drinks on, but you feel better about it because you worked out!” their friend, Sylvia, added. 

As the night wore on, a second class’s worth of GRIT BXNG attendees poured into the lobby, and the party atmosphere ratcheted up a notch. The freshly sweaty mingled with stragglers from my class, myself included, as more people lingered at the bar, lining up for free drinks instead of heading downstairs and throwing their heavy winter coats over their exercise gear. My interview style became, in a word, loose. My conversation with two recent NYU graduates, Brett and Milo, quickly slid from the realm of journalism into a spirited discussion about the recent nursing strike. Zanker, the co-founder, thrust a quilted tote bag with the GRIT BXNG logo into my hands as the room grew louder, which I accepted with giddy enthusiasm then ran downstairs to stuff in my locker. The music pulsed, and people snapped selfies in the motivational smart mirror. Rosso stepped into the middle of the room with a handful of lit sparklers, directing the mood as he basked in the glow of a dozen iPhone cameras, flash on, as cheering onlookers recorded his antics. I knew it was time for me to go home when I seriously considered ordering a second margarita. Feeling the rush of comradery, I hugged Zanker goodbye.

When I woke up the next morning, the physical aftermath was more night out than workout. My body hurt less than I expected it to, but the mental strain of running through a flurry of quasi-anonymous conversations and strobing lights in my memory was familiar. I had a few new followers on Instagram (Rosso included) and a text from the friend I dragged to class with me, thanking me for the invitation. All told, a classic morning after. I don’t know if I’m totally sold on the idea that drinking and fitness are the healthiest combination—but I do know a good time when I see one, and when I looked around GRIT BXNG, I saw a room full of people having their own version of fun.