Stephanie Farrar, Kei Cobb, Jenny Xie
Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Raimondi.
Jennifer, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
At West Side Wellness, LLC, our goal is to promote bodywork as a practical and enjoyable form of health care. Since 2011, we’ve made it easy by employing highly skilled licensed therapists in a simple setting, providing some of the best bodywork in Rhode Island at reasonable prices. And we don’t accept gratuity.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
West Side Wellness is truly a bootstrapped business. Lack of access to capital has been a consistent challenge, as has the general economic environment of Providence. Otherwise, we’ve experienced steady growth, with some ups and downs. Being in a neighborhood like the West Side, a mixed, vibrant, and close-knit area, you can become the neighborhood place. We have a lot of loyal clients. They’re our bread and butter. We have a wide range of clients: wealthy people, working-class people, unemployed people, people who are on Medicaid, athletes, people with chronic disease. We welcome everybody.
Our practice’s success is all about our talented workers. I’m picky when hiring; I select the most skilled and professional licensed massage therapists I can find. That said, staffing has become a challenge for the business over the past couple of years. I’ve been struggling to find skilled LMT whose philosophy matches ours. I believe it has to do with big massage chains swallowing up all the recent massage school graduates. However, we currently have a strong, close-knit team.
West Side Wellness – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We provide therapeutic bodywork. We’re not a spa environment. Though we offer modalities from reiki to Thai work to deep tissue, we’ve become known for structural and myofascial work… people know to come to us when they want focused work with a little intensity.
I am proud that we have created a welcoming, inclusive, safe environment. I am very proud that we see clients from all walks of life.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
When local organizations that support the community, non-violence, and human rights think of us when they want to provide massage for their workers or members, I know we’ve succeeded in getting our message out there: bodywork is healthcare and all humans deserve to be well.
Pricing:
- We do sessions anywhere from 15 minutes to 90 minutes
Contact Info:
- Address: West Side Wellness, LLC
376 West Fountain Street
Providence RI 02903 - Website: westsidewell.com
- Phone: 401-274-2225
- Email: westsidewell@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westsidewellnessllc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/West-Side-Wellness-LLC-159702304081034/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/westsidewell
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/west-side-wellness-llc-providence
- Other: https://westsidewell.wordpress.com/2017/02/
Muggs Fogarty, Mickey Zacchilli
Stephanie Farrar
Luis Rivera
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