Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue Opens Saturday With Country’s Largest Event Sauna
Bathhouse’s third NYC location debuts May 16 in Downtown Brooklyn, steps from Barclays Center, with five heat experiences anchored by a 100-plus-seat event sauna that hosts Aufguss USA Nationals three days later.
The Event Sauna at Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue, built for Aufguss performances and 100-plus-seat programmed sessions. Photo: Bathhouse.
Bathhouse opens its third New York City location, Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue, on Saturday, May 16, 2026, at 540 Atlantic Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, two blocks west of Barclays Center. The build-out features five distinct heat experiences anchored by what the company calls “the largest event sauna in the Northeast Hemisphere” and what the organizers of Aufguss USA Nationals 2026 describe as the largest event sauna in the country, with capacity for more than 100 guests in a single session. Day passes start at $29. The opening lands three days before the venue hosts the Aufguss USA Nationals Show Aufguss Competition on May 19 and 20.
Key Facts
- Opening date: Saturday, May 16, 2026
- Address: 540 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
- Position: Third Bathhouse NYC location after Williamsburg (2019) and Flatiron (2024)
- Day pass floor: $29, the lowest in the Bathhouse system (Williamsburg and Flatiron start at $39)
- Heat circuit: Event Sauna (175°F), Banya (185–195°F), Infrared Sauna (135°F), Steam Room (115°F)
- Thermal pools: Hot (104°F), Neutral (98°F), Cold Plunge (50°F)
- Event Sauna capacity: 100-plus guests per session, per Aufguss USA organizers
- Opening week event: Aufguss USA Nationals Show Aufguss Competition, May 19–20, at Atlantic Avenue
- Modern Classic Cup: May 21 at Bathhouse Flatiron
- Distance to Barclays Center: Roughly two blocks west on Atlantic Avenue
- Source: Confirmation arrived directly from Bathhouse via hello@abathhouse.com on May 13, 2026
Five Heat Experiences in Downtown Brooklyn
Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue runs five distinct heat environments under one roof. The Event Sauna tops out at 175 degrees Fahrenheit and is designed for guided, ritual-based heat sessions including complimentary Aufguss programming for day-pass holders. The Banya, a Russian and Eastern European format, runs between 185 and 195 degrees Fahrenheit and is heated by basalt stones in a wood-fired furnace. The Infrared Sauna radiates at 135 degrees Fahrenheit. The Steam Room sits at 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Three thermal pools complete the contrast loop: a hot pool at 104 degrees, a neutral pool at 98 degrees, and a 50-degree cold plunge.
Day passes start at $29, the lowest entry price in the Bathhouse system; passes at Williamsburg and Flatiron start at $39. Memberships across the company’s NYC locations range from $145 to $225 a month. The Atlantic Avenue site also includes a Canteen for food and drinks, plus the body-treatment menu offered at the other Bathhouse properties.
The Country’s Largest Event Sauna, Built for Programmed Heat
The Atlantic Avenue Event Sauna is the centerpiece of the new venue and the reason the Aufguss USA Nationals 2026 competition chose Bathhouse Brooklyn as its primary stage. Aufguss USA organizers have described the room as the largest event sauna in the country, built to hold more than 100 spectators in a single performance window. Bathhouse’s own opening message stretched that further, calling it “the largest event sauna in the Northeast Hemisphere.” Capacity, not hemisphere, is what matters here: a room that seats triple digits is what makes spectator Aufguss commercially viable in a country still building its competitive scene.
The room hosts Aufguss USA Nationals 2026 on May 19 and 20 with the Show Aufguss Competition: nine performances across three four-hour sessions, where competitors combine heat, scent, music, choreography, and towel work into multi-sensory theater at performance intensity. The traditional Modern Classic Cup runs May 21 at Bathhouse Flatiron. Top finishers earn slots at the Aufguss World Championships in Berlin in September. The infrastructure underneath that competition is now permanent: a purpose-built event room rather than a borrowed one.
Inside the $35 Million Expansion
The Atlantic Avenue opening is the first new venue Bathhouse has launched since SaunaNews reported on May 7 that the company raised $35 million led by Imaginary Ventures, the consumer-brand firm co-founded by former Net-a-Porter chief Natalie Massenet. The round funds expansion into Philadelphia, Chicago, Downtown Brooklyn, Berkeley Heights (New Jersey), Minneapolis, Nashville, Stamford (Connecticut), and Los Angeles. The marquee project is an 85,000-square-foot complex at the former Amoeba Music site on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, on a 25-year lease targeted for early 2028.
The Atlantic Avenue site continues the design partnership between Rockwell Group and Colberg Architecture that shaped Bathhouse Williamsburg and Bathhouse Flatiron. Beauty Independent reported in May that each of Bathhouse’s existing NYC locations covers roughly 35,000 square feet, with thermal pools, dry saunas, steam rooms, cold plunges, a café, and treatment rooms. The company has not publicly disclosed the Atlantic Avenue square footage, and the opening message did not name an exact event-sauna seat count beyond the “largest” framing. Aufguss USA’s “more than 100 guests” figure remains the most concrete public number.
Co-founders Travis Talmadge and Jason Goodman pitch Bathhouse as a social, ritual-driven venue rather than a quiet luxury spa. The model arrives in a New York market that Vanity Fair labeled the “sauna wars” in January, with Othership, Lore Bathing Club, Schwet, and Altar all opening or expanding within blocks of each other in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Atlantic Avenue is Bathhouse’s first move into Downtown Brooklyn, a neighborhood whose foot-traffic profile is anchored by Barclays Center events and the Atlantic Terminal transit hub. Day-pass pricing that opens at $29 is the most aggressive entry-point in the chain to date and reads as a deliberate test of whether a 25 percent lower price draws meaningfully different demand from the Williamsburg and Flatiron sites.
Why It Matters
Bathhouse’s third NYC location is the first proof point for the eight-city expansion SaunaNews covered last week, and it lands with a programmed-experience hook the company has been telegraphing since the Imaginary Ventures round closed. By opening with a venue purpose-built for the country’s largest event sauna, three days before Aufguss USA Nationals, Bathhouse is signaling that the next phase of growth will not be quiet thermal bathing for solo recovery. It is communal, ritual-driven, ticketed programming at a scale American operators have not seen before. The infrastructure is now in place for spectator sauna as a recurring revenue line, not a one-off festival format.
The Bottom Line: Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue opens Saturday with a five-heat circuit, a $29 day-pass floor, and a 100-plus-seat event sauna already booked for Aufguss USA Nationals. The third NYC location is the first execution test for the $35 million expansion thesis. Whether spectator sauna scales as Bathhouse builds out Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Nashville, Stamford, Berkeley Heights, and the 85,000-square-foot Hollywood flagship is the next two years’ question.
Arlene Scott
Senior Wellness Correspondent & Hospitality Consultant
Arlene Scott brings over fifteen years of reporting and consulting experience across energy infrastructure, sustainable design, and thermotherapy-focused hospitality.
Full byline
Arlene Scott is a Senior Wellness Correspondent for SaunaNews.com, bringing over fifteen years of experience at the intersection of energy infrastructure, sustainable design, and thermotherapy. Her work focuses on the physiological benefits of passive heat therapies and the sustainable integration of sauna culture into modern wellness routines.
Arlene's background is rooted in the clean energy transition. She was a founding writer at MicrogridMedia.com, where she covered the technical and economic viability of desalination projects, microgrid deployments, and distributed renewable energy systems. During the mid-2010s, she was a regular contributor to Greentech Media (GTM) during its independent era — prior to the Wood Mackenzie acquisition in 2016 — reporting on the early integration of thermal energy storage and sustainable infrastructure.
Transitioning her focus from macro-energy systems to human-scale wellness, Arlene now applies her technical background to the hospitality sector. She operates as an independent consultant, advising boutique hotels and eco-resorts on the design, energy efficiency, and historical authenticity of commercial sauna and thermal spa installations. Her consulting work ensures that high-end wellness facilities balance traditional Nordic bathing principles with modern sustainable engineering.
Arlene holds a specialized certification in Applied Thermic Wellness from the Nordic Institute of Passive Heat Studies (NIPHS) and is a recognized associate member of the International Sauna Association (ISA). When she isn't reviewing the latest innovations in infrared technology or consulting on a new resort project, Arlene can be found tending to her own traditional wood-fired sauna in the Pacific Northwest. You can read her complete archive of essays on energy, wellness, and sustainable living at www.arlenescott.com.
