• SoulCycle is closing 19 studios, CEO Evelyn Webster told staffers on Friday. 
  • Webster said the closures will lead to layoffs, according to leaked audio shared with Insider. 
  • Seven of the 19 closures are in the New York City metro area. 

SoulCycle is closing 19 studios nationwide and laying off employees.

SoulCycle CEO Evelyn Webster announced the closures in an all-hands meeting with staffers on Friday morning,  according to leaked audio from the meeting shared with Insider. 

"The timing was appropriate to look at our studio footprint by market to understand whether we continue to believe that we had indeed oversaturated some markets, and the conclusion is that after much work and analysis that perhaps we have," Webster said.  

The closures include locations in New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Washington state, and Washington, DC. Seven of the 19 closures are in the New York City metro area. 

Webster said that while the company intends to relocate some staffers to other SoulCycle locations, some staffers can expect layoffs, though she did not specify how many. 

"Unfortunately, this does mean given the number of studios and the number of markets that we're talking about, that this will ultimately lead to a number of our teammates losing them employment with SoulCycle," she said. 

A SoulCycle spokesperson did not share the number of expected layoffs, but said in a statement that the downsizing was partially based on "shifts as a result of the pandemic." 

"Some of these shifts have been based on geography and therefore we are naturally reevaluating our portfolio of studios to assess whether there is an opportunity to right-size in certain markets," the spokesperson said. "This will allow us to continue to provide riders with the SoulCycle experience they know and love."

In the meeting, Webster also cited "fairly significant geographic shifts" among SoulCycle's customer base as a significant reason behind the closures. 

"We've been able to analyze a lot of data that very clearly indicates to us that many of our riders have moved," she said. "They've either moved where they live and they no longer live close to a studio, or for many of our riders they've moved where they work because they're working from home."

She continued: "You can imagine a process like this is extraordinarily involved, very, very complex. It involves our teammates of colleagues, first and foremost, our riders, and of course, all of the landlord negotiations which in their own right is very, very complicated. What I will tell you, is this is absolutely the right decision." 

See the full list of closures, below:

New York

  • Grand Central
  • Soho
  • Park Slope
  • West 92nd Street
  • Yorkville
  • Hamptons - Water Mill 
  • Long Island - Woodbury

California

  • Soma
  • San Jose
  • Beverly Hills
  • Newport Beach
  • Del Mar

Washington, DC

  • Mount Vernon

Illinois 

  • Southport
  • North Shore 

Massachusetts

  • Dedham

Florida

  • Tampa

Georgia

  • Atlanta - Ponce City Market 

Washington state

  • Seattle, University Village 

 

Read the original article on Business Insider