SweatHouz Cold Plunge Franchise Joins San Mateo Mixed-Use Development Brickline

The math on cold plunging just landed inside a San Mateo apartment complex: $40 per session drop-in, or $159 a month for four, in a private room where you control the temperature, the schedule, and exactly who else touches the water.

Prometheus Real Estate Group confirmed SweatHouz as a ground-floor tenant at Brickline, its fully leased 88,000-square-foot mixed-use development at 1 North B Street in downtown San Mateo. The announcement, issued March 26, places the contrast-therapy franchise alongside Reposado, Johnny's, Club Pilates, Squeeze Massage, and Juniper Cafe inside a building that already stacks 64 apartments above 65,000 square feet of office space and 19,000 square feet of retail.

SweatHouz operates entirely on a private-suite model: one bookable room containing an infrared sauna, a cold plunge tub, and a vitamin C shower, with sessions clocking at 60 minutes. No communal tub, no shared lane, no guessing what temperature the water was left at by the last person. The base membership at $159 per month for four sessions puts the cost per plunge at exactly $40, matching the introductory drop-in rate. For anyone on a weekly contrast protocol, that membership math is break-even from day one. For anyone hitting it twice a week, the per-session cost drops to around $20.

The franchise backing the concept has been scaling fast. Through the end of 2025, SweatHouz was opening two new studios every week, reaching more than 78 locations across 25 states with over 90 more in development, and targeting 100 operating locations by early 2026. The brand earned a spot on Entrepreneur Magazine's 2025 Top New and Emerging Franchises list and counts NFL running back Saquon Barkley, former wide receiver Danny Amendola, and Peloton instructor Kendall Toole among its backers. Atlanta-based Legacy Franchise Concepts, founded by Jamie Weeks, runs the franchise operation under a membership-driven recurring-revenue model.

Brickline's tenant mix makes the fit obvious. Prometheus developer Pat Calihan described the project as designed to contribute to the revitalization of downtown San Mateo, with the full slate of tenants chosen accordingly. A building this dense, with residents, office tenants, and street-level retail already in place, produces exactly the foot traffic that makes a booking-driven recovery concept viable. SweatHouz occupies the same ground-floor retail logic as Club Pilates: both run on memberships, both depend on regularity, and both fit between a lunch spot and a coffee bar.

The private-suite format also quietly solves the adoption problem that communal cold plunge setups create. Shared tubs ask users to accept unknown temperatures, group norms around swimwear, and open-plan changing areas. A booked private room removes all of that, which matters for beginners who haven't yet committed to the habit and for experienced users who just want a clean, predictable 60 minutes on their own timetable.

With SweatHouz at the pace it has been expanding and Brickline as the proof-of-concept, the franchise is no longer making the case that contrast therapy belongs in mainstream retail; it is the case.