WAUPUN — This past Monday marked a significant milestone at Club Fitness of Waupun, having been 20 years since the doors first opened at 306 East Main St.
Jeff and Lisa Collien opened Club Fitness for the first time on Thursday, July 7, 2005, which they are celebrating this week with trivia questions and photos of their 20 years in business, including renovation photos from when they first purchased the building.
The building used to be Sigrid’s Bavarian Inn, a restaurant which had closed about five years before Jeff and Lisa purchased the building.
As for why they started the business, Lisa said it was always her dream to operate her own health club. Lisa had worked at another gym called Gold Medal Fitness at the time which was going out of business, so they purchased all the equipment.
Jeff also really liked downtown Waupun, which was not doing well at the time, and they were able to purchase the Bavarian Inn building and make renovations over three months.
When they first opened the business, they were open from 5AM to 10PM, but this only lasted a year. According to Lisa, they became 24/7 in 2006, and they were able to finish the upstairs classrooms in 2007—which had previously been sectioned apartments. The rooms are currently used for pilates and classroom demonstrations, as well as a ladies’ workout room.
“Waupun has always been good to us. Our gym has been very well supported by Waupun in general, even through Covid,” Jeff said. “We thought people would have screamed, ‘Oh, don’t take my membership out if we can’t come,’ but overwhelmingly all of them are like, ‘you just keep taking our membership, we want you to survive.’ So, we can’t thank Waupun enough to still be here as a small mom-and-pop gym.”
“We know a lot of people that have tried it—they’re long gone,” he said. “We’ve had friends that even work for us that started gyms, and they’ve been gone fifteen years already. So it’s a pretty big achievement to be here 20 years in Waupun, especially with a franchise gym coming in two years later.”
They also said that they were excited to bring in some new equipment, having gotten rid of some of their older equipment recently. Their son, Jaden Collien, is also now certified in personal training and nutrition.
Club Fitness is offering several specials for next week, July 14-18. This includes a sale where memberships are 2-for-1 with no restriction on households for next week only, which is one of their most popular sales. Other sales and specials will be held throughout the week including a chance at prizes.
On July 17, Nick Rusch will be doing a live broadcast at Club Fitness from 10:30AM to 1:30PM.
Attached next door at 310 E Main St is Wind and Unwined, also owned by Jeff and Lisa Collien.
Follow the new Club Fitness of Waupun Facebook page for more details.
