The latest Natick, Mass., business news:
Boxing gym rumbling into Natick Mall
An indoor boxing fitness center called Rumble Boxing Gym has aired plans to open in the spring at the Natick Mall. The business is designed to get you pumped and jacked through focused 45-minute group workouts that combine boxing drills and resistance training, all with a pulsating music backdrop and motivational instructors.
The roughly 2,800 sq. ft. space was once occupied by Paul Bakery.
Rumble has a handful of gyms in New Jersey and New York, and more planned in New England, including in Somerville and Watertown.
The Natick Planning Board took up the pitch from Dr. Chandra Manish, including signage, at its Oct. 12 meeting, about 2 hours, 13 minutes into the meeting. The Board approved of the use at the mall and temporary signage, with final signage up for approval later in the month.
Fitness enthusiasts Manish and wife Shriti Shah, a business attorney, are the owners. Manish is a practicing general dentist—and an entrepreneur who’s also involved in the hotel industry.
“We have secured development rights with Xponential Fitness to open [Rumble] locations in Metrowest Boston and Norfolk county,” Manish says. “The Natick community has the right mix of fitness enthusiasts and is missing the HIIT [high intensity interval training] fitness concept with boxing modality.”
Rumble classes feature ten 3-minute rounds. “Half the class is spent boxing with our custom aqua-filled bags & the other half is spent powering through strength & resistance training exercises. You can take it as easy or hard as you like. Our classes are beginner friendly and for all levels,” Manish says.
A pre-sale is slated for January.
Liquor license fees revert to 2020 levels
The Natick Select Board voted last week to return liquor license fees for on-premises consumption at restaurants, etc. in 2023, to their pre-pandemic levels, having given businesses a break the past couple of years in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact (see discussion on Natick Pegasus recording, about 14 minutes in). Fees had been cut by half.
The town had actually conducted a comprehensive review of license fees shortly before the pandemic, and the 2020 fees reflected that. That’s the set of fees the town voted to return to for 2023.
The Board decided not to go all the way back to the previous fees for hotels/inns, which are still recovering from the pandemic. Down the road, the town could reexamine fees for sellers of liquor for off-premises consumption, with an eye toward possibly making the fee difference between small package stories and larger retailers such as Total Wine and Wegmans more pronounced.
There was also talk of incremental fee increases in the future, say every couple of years, rather than more drastic increases that would happen every so often.
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Fisk Pond
Ortiz wasn’t afraid to take his message of maintaining good health to a personal level to hit home with the crowd. “Health is something that’s very important to me,” he said. “Having a good team is really important because at the end of the day you don’t win a game all alone. That’s exactly how it goes with this insurance company. This plan really caught my attention because of all the benefits that they can provide for all of you.” Ortiz shared that his father is battling cancer, and that he has many older relatives with health issues.
David Ortiz, always the consummate people person, warmly greets a young fan.
David Ortiz leads a walk around the mall, along with Pooja Ika, the founder and CEO of eternalHealth. The Babson College graduate at 25 years old is the youngest woman to have launched a new Medicare Advantage Health Plan. “We really want to be able to promote wellness and education about how even just taking a simple walk outside can help promote better health,” she said.
Big Papi wasn’t the only athletic legend at the Natick Mall. In the audience was 