Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Fort Collins. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Nick George helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Fort Collins, Colorado.
Is your business serving the residents of Fort Collins? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpFortCollins.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins
E37: Therapeutic Care Meets Luxurious Relaxation at Fort Collins' Award-Winning Day Spa
Surviving Hurricane Katrina and a global pandemic might break some people, but for Melissa Stewart, these catastrophes became catalysts for an unexpected journey into wellness entrepreneurship. After losing everything in Katrina, Melissa's path led her to a small North Carolina town where a chance encounter with a spa owner sparked a passion that would eventually become Soak Spa – now a seven-time award winner recognized by Noco Style as one of Fort Collins' top three day spas.
What makes Soak Spa special isn't just their comprehensive menu of services including therapeutic massage, facials, body treatments, and acne care. Their standout offering is the unique foot sanctuary experience that shouldn't be confused with standard pedicures. These therapeutic foot soaks paired with head, neck, and shoulder massages prioritize wellness over aesthetics, allowing clients to remain fully clothed while receiving profound relaxation benefits. This perfectly represents Melissa's mission to provide genuinely therapeutic care rather than mere "fluff" – a misconception she actively works to dispel, especially among male clients who might not realize the sports and deep tissue massage options available.
Melissa's background combines formal education in massage and aesthetics with a marketing degree from Loyola, creating the perfect foundation for building a thriving wellness business that serves clients from 18 to 65+ through memberships that make regular self-care accessible. When not running the spa, she embraces life's adventures – from walking 100 miles of Spain's Camino de Santiago to baking for loved ones and hiking Colorado's beautiful landscapes. Experience the calm environment and skilled care that customers rave about by visiting https://soakspashop.com/ or calling 970-377-9868 to discover why Soak Spa represents the perfect synthesis of therapeutic expertise and luxurious relaxation.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of an elevated soak and spa treatment? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Melissa Stewart, with Soak Spa. Melissa, how's it going Going great, Thank you. We're excited to learn all about you and your business. Please tell us about your company.
Speaker 3:Well Soak Spa was founded back in June 2017. We've been really lucky to earn awards with Noco Style for the last seven years, being the top three best day spa, and we are a holistic day spa, so we offer massage, therapeutic massage, facials, acne treatments, spa packages, body scrubs, wraps, and then we have a unique service called the foot sanctuary, where we do foot soaks with massage. We do not do pedicures and manicures. It really is more about the care of the feet and really doing a really good massage of the feet, head, neck and shoulder, while people are clothed and soaking their feet at the same time. How did you get into this?
Speaker 2:business.
Speaker 3:I actually went to Hurricane Katrina and I wound up moving to this really small town called Brevard, north Carolina, and I was selling advertising and I walked into this amazing spa called Elements and I met this wonderful woman named Patty and she'd been in the spa business for 25 years at that point and she was looking for a partner to come in and buy her spa. And we met and talked and I tried to buy her spa a couple of times and I started working there and managing the spa and then I fell in love with the industry and then I went back to school and got a degree in certification in massage and in aesthetics and I also have a degree, a four-year degree from Loyola in marketing. So all of those combined have really benefited me greatly with starting my own business.
Speaker 2:What are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?
Speaker 3:I think a big myth is that people think spa and they think fluff. They don't think, especially gentlemen, that you can come in there and get a really therapeutic massage or sports massage. And we offer all of that. We do the fluff too, which is a relaxation massage or Swedish massage, but we really also get in there too. We have very skilled therapists that do very therapeutic work. So that, I think, is one of the biggest misnomers that I think is out there about spas.
Speaker 2:Who are your target customers and how do you attract them now?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, there's uh, there's a lot of ways. I do a monthly newsletter, I do social media, I do SEO, I do community events um corporate chair massage events, um events with other community partners, um, and then we also offer a membership for clients to make it a little bit more cost effective and for people to really embrace their health and wellness and have a plan monthly to come in. And our clients range, honestly, from 18 years old to, you know, 65 plus.
Speaker 2:Have you ever thought about doing your own podcast?
Speaker 3:Sometimes. Yes, I've been considering that If I can get away from daily running of the spa, managing of the spa, which I'm really trying to do. One of my other loves, besides just doing skincare, is I love to educate people. So I have thought about it.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, that segues into my next question. Outside of work, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:I travel. Last year I went to Spain and I walked the Camino with my husband. He walked 500 miles and I walked 100 miles. I also love to bake, and especially for my staff and for friends and family, and I love to hike and walk a lot outside.
Speaker 2:Let's switch gears. Can you describe the hardship or life challenge that you overcame and how it made you stronger? What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:Well, there are two big things I lost my home and everything in it and Katrina and dang it. I also went through a pandemic. I had two major catastrophes in my life. It's like what the heck right? But with Katrina, honestly that was a really challenging situation. To lose everything, all my family was displaced, having to come back and figure out what we were going to do, where we were going to move. But it really opened up a great opportunity for me to really live in other states and to really embrace starting over, and I really love being able to do that and have had that opportunity to do that quite a few times now.
Speaker 2:Melissa, tell our listeners one thing that they should absolutely remember about your Soak Spa.
Speaker 3:our listeners one thing that they should absolutely remember about your Soak Spa. That's a tough one because there's just a lot of things. A lot of the reviews we get are just the calm environment that we provide and then the skilled and caring therapists and therapeutic care that we give to our clients.
Speaker 2:Nice. Well, how can our listeners learn more about Soak Spa?
Speaker 3:Well, they can go to our website, and that's wwwsoakspashopcom. And yes, we do sell skin care products and other products from local vendors. I do really like to support our local community, and you can also call us at 970-377-9868.
Speaker 2:Well, Melissa, I really appreciate you being on the show and we wish you and your Soaks spa the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I really appreciate being invited to do the show, nick, thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpfortcollinscom. That's gnpfortcollinscom, or call 970-438-0825.