Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports activities — the weblog about consuming pizza (kidding — it’s a really giant media firm that covers sports activities and pop-culture and has an enormous cult following) — has chosen Lyons Den Power Yoga as a recipient of its Barstool Fund grants for small companies. I haven’t heard simply what the quantity is, but it surely was sufficient to make Bethany Lyons’ voice crack when she received the information. (Due to N. for forwarding the tweet.)
“We’ve been so pissed off and so ignored,” she tells Portnoy when he pops up on a Facetime name to announce the present. “Not even a point out after they point out gyms — it’s like they don’t even care in any respect, that they don’t even acknowledge that we’re a enterprise, and there’s no recourse.”
The Barstool Fund has raised $20 million, beginning with Portnoy’s seed cash of a half million, they usually have made 90 grants up to now to companies throughout the nation who submit an software by video. Portnoy calls the winners himself, and provides them to his Instagram and Twitter feed. “Listening to these tales, it’s enraging,” he tells Lyons. “It’s why we received concerned. And it’s why we’re calling folks and placing the faces to the tales.”
Lyons founded the studio here in 2013 after a decade of instructing yoga within the metropolis and as one in every of SoulCycle’s first instructors. From that one room and one worker on Church and White, she expanded to a different flooring right here and a studio in Chelsea and a payroll of fifty, with plans to develop to a 3rd studio this 12 months. That was all derailed with the pandemic (there was additionally a fireplace within the constructing in February that broken her enterprise and the previous Baked house) and he or she is now simply attempting to maintain one location afloat (hopefully it’s ours).
“We had been on observe to do near $2 million in income this 12 months and now we’re completely in debt,” she advised Portnoy.
Within the video, Lyons mentions what I’ve heard many enterprise homeowners complain about: lack of steering, assist and consistency from authorities. “We aren’t being allowed to work laborious. Why do some folks get to open? Why do some folks get to go on planes? There’s no purpose why we should always go below. We’re 100% one thing that’s wanted now. We all know easy methods to do it — and we simply had it pulled out from below us. Nobody will work tougher than us. So wager on us.”
The decision to Bethany, from Lyon’s Den. #BarstoolFund pic.twitter.com/eqVjIgFNFn
— The Barstool Fund (@BarstoolFund) December 28, 2020
The following enterprise we’re serving to is Lyons Den Energy Yoga in New York, NY. #BarstoolFund
Click on To Donate – https://t.co/MkTXHH0fya pic.twitter.com/V1uIFEjNqu
— The Barstool Fund (@BarstoolFund) December 28, 2020