Fitness and wellness have always played an important role in Lisa O’Neill’s life.
She started going to Pure Barre’s Westlake location for about a year before COVID-19 forced classes online. But despite this shift, O’Neill kept seeing results, which inspired her to open her own Pure Barre studio in the Southwest Austin area.
“I loved the community and the atmosphere, so I just kind of followed my curiosity,” O’Neill said.
The locally owned franchise held its soft opening in October 2021 and held a grand opening in January 2022.
O’Neill, who has lived in the Southwest Austin area for 18 years, did research and took classes at other barre franchises to see if she liked them any better but was impressed with everything she heard and saw about Pure Barre.
“I definitely enjoyed Pure Barre the most,” she said.
What to expect
Pure Barre’s Southwest Austin location offers a selection of full-body barre classes: Classic, Empower, Align and Define.
The Classic is Pure Barre’s “claim to fame” and has all the classic components of a pure barre workout, which is a workout that uses elements of ballet. The Empower class utilizes more cardio with a barre element. The Align class is more yoga centric with a focus on balance, mobility and stretching.
The Define class is tailored toward strength training using small dumbbells with barre mixed in.
“That one is brand new; people have really been loving it,” O’Neill said.
What else?
The studio also holds in-studio challenges, pop-up classes and events.
For example, the studio held a Barbie event where participants were encouraged to wear pink or bright-colored clothing. The barre studio was also decorated with pink lights and “Barbie” movie posters.
Since opening, O’Neill said the community feedback has been nice.
“What makes me smile most of all, other than knowing it's healthy and so good for you, but just the range of the types of members we have from all walks of life,” she said. “And, of course, new people are sprinkling in all the time, so it’s been a really great community.”
Pure Barre
4301 W. William Cannon Drive, Bldg. B, Ste. 114
512-920-6966. www.purebarre.com/location/southwest-austin-tx
Hours: Mon.-Wed. 7 a.m.-8 p.m., Tue-Thu. 6 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri. 7 a.m. -6:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 9 a.m. -2 p.m.
