All’s Well Builds ‘Friendship Infrastructure’ Around a 50-Person Sauna in Minneapolis
By SaunaShare
Sauna culture and community
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The Harrison neighborhood spa opened October 3 with three kinds of sauna, steam, a cold plunge, a warm pool and salt and forest rooms. There are no timers, phones stay in lockers, and a two-hour pass is $55.
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All’s Well Sauna and Waterspa opened to founding members on October 3 at 201 Irving Ave N, in Minneapolis’s Harrison neighborhood. It bills itself as the city’s first social spa. Its biggest room is a 50-person sauna, and one two-hour pass covers the whole circuit.
“The most common thing we hear from guests is how much they appreciate having a social space to be part of,” co-founder Emileigh Barnes told SaunaNews by email. “We all know loneliness is an epidemic in this country, and we’re calling All’s Well friendship infrastructure.” Bookings have been solid since the opening, she said.
All’s Well at a glance
- Where 201 Irving Ave N, Minneapolis
- Parking free in the lots around the building
- Hours Monday to Friday, 3 to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Day pass $55 for a two-hour session; a 10-pack is $495, and both are good for a year
- Memberships $160 a month for four visits, $275 for eight, $349 unlimited
- Massage from $135 for 70 minutes, in four rooms named for local lakes
- Good to know ages 16 and up, swimsuits required, phones stay in lockers
The 50-person sauna sits under a ceiling of curved fir beams
Douglas fir beams curve across the showcase sauna’s ceiling to suggest moving water, Mpls.St.Paul Magazine reported in its tour of the space, and Barnes told the magazine that no two beams share the same curve. Two heaters warm the room, and the team plans to set scented snowballs on them to raise the humidity. The team is also working toward Finnish sauna certification. On Instagram, Minnesota photographer Jon Kreye called it the largest sauna in the state, kept at a constant 195°F, with a window that looks out onto the waterfall.
The room will host regular programming, starting with Aufguss and sound baths, Barnes told SaunaNews. The team also wants to try ideas outside the usual sauna lineup, such as a sauna book club. Aufguss, the ritual of fanning heat through the room with a towel after water goes on the stones, now has four separate world championships.
Two more saunas, steam and a cold plunge fill out the loop
The circuit is self-guided. The spa’s booking page sums it up as “hot space, cold space, rest space. Repeat as many times as feels good.” Beyond the showcase room, the hot side has a wood-burning sauna, infrared saunas and a tiled steam room that Kern told the magazine runs at 120°F and 80 percent humidity. The cold plunge is just under two feet deep, with a shallower bar across the middle that lets bathers prop their feet up out of the water.
Between rounds, guests can sit in a temperate pool under a long waterfall, stretch out in a Himalayan salt room or rest in the forest room, a warm plant room stocked and tended by Midwest Plant Studio. Its speakers play forest sounds Beaudoin recorded in northern Minnesota. An outdoor patio has a fireplace.
No timers, no phones and no PDA
The founders tested the idea with a sauna pop-up at Utepils Brewing. “Something we learned from our sauna pop-up at Utepils this past year, which we test-drove to get to know the community, is that none of it is that serious,” Kern told the magazine. “We’re not putting timers in the sauna or cold plunge. When you’re too hot or cold, get out. That’s it.”
The house rules are short. Phones stay in lockers, with no photos, video or audio recording. “Yes, talking is actually encouraged here!” Kreye wrote. Guests are asked to be mindful of their neighbors, and the spa calls itself “a flirt-free hangout,” with no PDA. Towels, slippers and toiletries are provided.
Three friends built it with Minnesota partners
Barnes, Beaudoin and Kern founded All’s Well. The spa’s website describes them as three Minneapolis friends, “one a very tired mom,” who wanted a place to slow down and reconnect. Barnes and Beaudoin come from corporate design, strategy and user research, the magazine reported, and they planned details down to lockers big enough for winter coats. People keep asking what kind of spa it is, Beaudoin told the magazine.
“Is this a Scandi spa? A K-spa? No, it’s a Minnesota spa.” Caity Beaudoin, co-founder, to Mpls.St.Paul Magazine
Collage Architects designed the space, and Christian Dean Architecture led furniture, fixtures and equipment. Murals by Minnesota artists Liza Darlington and Kada Goaelen run from the lobby into the spa, and the lobby lounge runs a non-alcoholic drinks program with Marigold. A partnership with neighbor Misfit Coffee is in the works.
The founders named Watershed Spa, Embrace North and Portal° Thermaculture among the local places that inspired them. Portal is building a five-metro social sauna chain.
Kreye (@jonkreye) took the photos in this story. All’s Well “might just be one of the most beautiful spa experiences in the Midwest,” he wrote on Instagram, where his posts about the spa have drawn more than 7,000 likes. He photographs hotels and vacation rentals for clients including Vrbo, Expedia, Travel + Leisure and Four Seasons, and he is the author of two hardcover coffee table books on Minnesota and Wisconsin stays, Up North and Back to the Woods.
Passes and memberships are booked on the All’s Well website, and the spa’s SaunaShare listing has more on each room. More places to sauna are on SaunaShare’s Minneapolis page.
Disclosure: All’s Well is listed on SaunaShare, which owns SaunaNews.
