Donnie Jarreau and his partner in Regymen Fitness, Edward Navan, are bringing a new concept to Baton Rouge focused on health, wellness and injury prevention.
Kouve Wellness and Recovery Clinics will open its first location later this spring in a 1,000-square-foot space adjacent to Regymen’s Corporate Boulevard location.
Kouve will offer a variety of services, including cryotherapy, red light therapy, dry float therapy and infrared saunas. Currently, such services are available locally at various clinics, gyms and spas but no facility has combined them all under one roof, Navan says.
Kouve will also offer Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, or HBOT, which has been widely used in the medical field to treat severe illnesses and, recently, has started creeping into the wellness and recovery space.
“When you hear the word recovery, people think it’s like recovery from a drug addiction,” Navan says. “We’re thinking of recovery from everyday life, whether you’re running a business, working out or raising a family. Your mind and body never get a chance to heal.”
Because of its medical component, Kouve will have a medical director on staff as well as a registered nurse.
The wellness and recovery space is a rapidly growing sector nationwide, valued at more than $4 billion in late 2018.
As therapies like cryo, which is supposed to reduce joint inflammation and increase flexibility, or infrared saunas, which are said to reduce muscle pain, become increasingly popular among an aging but active population, opportunities in the sector are growing.
Jarreau and Navan plan to open a second location adjacent to Regymen’s Ascension Parish location late this spring, and a third Kouve in St. Petersburg, Florida, this fall.
Their long-term plan is to franchise the concept.
“We will be expanding this quickly,” Navan says. “We see this as being one of the biggest pushes in the industry. We’re going to do a series of company-owned then start selling franchises in late 2020.”
