Equinox Domino — Local services in New York

Equinox should be embarrassed. It's truly criminal that they are advertising this location as a "flagship" gym and charging what they are. Everything in the other 1-star reviews is accurate - there is no view to speak of from the gym, and it's smaller and more cramped than they led folks to believe when they convinced people to sign up sight-unseen. Be prepared to walk into a literal construction site. It's abundantly clear that this gym should not be open yet, and they rushed things to get it open. Here are just some of the issues people should be aware of:

The locker room feels dank, damp, and gross. For a gym that's been open for less than a month, it's shocking how worn-in and yucky the locker room feels. The floors are ALWAYS wet. They have a guy walking around pushing the water with a wet mop, so it doesn't actually dry the floor. I don't really know what his job is, other than pretending to look like he's drying the floor. The lockers themselves are pretty small. Things just don't "feel" like a flagship, luxury gym. The containers that hold things like q-tips feel like cheap plastic from Amazon. There are no garbage cans near the mirror stations in the locker room, so you just have to hold on to your used q-tips. The hair dryers are not great. There are only two water fountains in the locker room, and they are comically close together. If one person is using one, it's tough to fit and use the other one. Which doesn't actually matter, because both fountains won't physically dispense water at the same time. If one is being used and you try to use the other, the pressure drops to zero, and now no one can get water. Despite staff always wandering around the locker room, I went to three different showers, and they were all out of body wash. The stairs are somehow always wet. When you walk into the locker room, there is a photo of what the pool/cold plunge area might look like, and it's haphazardly DUCT TAPED to the wall. This gym is raking in 1.24 billion in revenue, and they slapped a duct-taped picture on the wall? Truly embarrassing. The main attraction for me, the pool and cold plunge, won't open until "end of January at the earliest." Which is not what was told to me when I was convinced to sign up. Trainers walk around with their clients and take up WAY more space than needed doing weird, dumb exercises. As others have mentioned, there is a shocking lack of mirrors. Which would be fine if there was a view, but all you can really see is the exterior brick of the shell of the Domino building. The lights are way too bright. There are no bike racks anywhere near the entrance.

Any of these on their own wouldn't be a huge issue, especially for a new gym that is figuring out its growing pains. But the fact this gym costs what it does and one of the main attractions isn't open yet, it feels like a huge scam.

TLDR: Save your money. This isn't what an Equinox...

I’m a longtime equinox member and a former regular at the other Williamsburg location on Bedford. I joined domino as soon as it opened but wanted to wait for the club to be fully open before reviewing. Equinox desperately needed another Williamsburg club, the original Williamsburg location had become unusable due to overcrowding, so this club is a welcome addition. They still need another club or two in Brooklyn.

The good:

Classes/instructors - equinox always has an excellent variety of classes and top notch instructors, this location is no different (see the bad 1 and 2 below) The club and building are both nice, better than most gyms and even most equinoxes.

The bad:

THE CLUB IS WAY TOO CROWDED. I get that equinox makes money by having a lot of members but if the gym isn’t useable it’s bad for everybody. The classes tend to book up very far in advance, I’d suggest booking as soon as they open especially, yoga, barre, cycling. The workout floor is no better, cramped and crowded always. I’ve noticed that classes at all clubs tend to happen at the same time so the domino yoga and Williamsburg yoga usually happen at the same time. Mix it up a little. The water pressure is terrible

The fatal flaw:

Equinox is a for profit business, I get it. Equinox charges more for a destination location, and equinox intends to make this a destination location (they tell you this when you sign up). You’d think that printing house would have taught equinox that building a destination location with a fatal flaw is a bad idea but clearly they didn’t learn that lesson.

The fatal flaw here is the pool. The pool is amazing, who doesn’t love a pool. But there just isn’t enough room in this location for a pool so every area of the club is smaller than it needs to be to fit the pool. Can’t be destination without the pool so they had to add the pool to charge $25 more. But the pool takes up as much space as all the other studios combined and it can be used by 3-6 people at a time. It makes no sense that all the classes and the gym floor are always over crowded so that equinox can charge people $25 more a month. The pool shouldn’t exist and all the other spaces should be way bigger. Obviously there’s no way to fix this, hence the flaw being fatal. Maybe triple the number of classes but they...

Now that the pool and spa are open, I’m reposting my review after 45+ workouts at Domino. It’s packed with gimmicks that sell memberships but has a lot of problems and missed opportunities for people who regularly workout. I’ve stopped going, now take the subway to Flatiron and other EQ locations, and am considering canceling for a better Brooklyn gym. Here’s why: Facility – Repurposing the Domino building is a cool concept, but inside, the views are 95% blocked. You’d never know you're next to some of the best Manhattan views in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, the neighboring apartment gym has floor-to-ceiling windows and an outdoor pool. Huge miss. Pool – Indoors, three floors down. Think Equinox Hudson Yards—outdoor, social, a destination. Instead, we get a small lap pool with a giant fishbowl sauna for people to stare at swimmers. Locker Room – Cramped, like Bedford’s, even though this gym is bigger. Gets dirty fast. The dry sauna is across from the pool, requiring a swimsuit and a trip out of the locker room, while the steam room is inside. No easy sauna/steam rotation. And being in the basement means it's always musky. Location – Impractical to get to unless you live nearby. Far from the Bedford L, bike stations always full, no parking. It’ll get weekend traffic in summer, but unlike other destination Equinox locations, it's remote except for neighbors. Workout Area – Bigger than Bedford but not on par with Flatiron or Greenwich. Cardio is crammed up against weights—bikers are staring at someone’s crotch doing bench press. Free weights are a bottleneck with the cable machines, yet the leg area is oddly empty. I'd move the smith machine. Preacher curl and leg extension machines are strange. Mirrors? Barely any. But the workout floor bathrooms? Stunning—finally, someone cared. Lighting, though? Airport runway vibes. The Crowd – Least "Brooklyn vibe" I’ve ever felt in Brooklyn. No energy, no diversity. Just blah. Other Notes – The front door is unnecessarily brutal. The rushed opening was a trainwreck. Positives – It’s Equinox. Premium (not luxury) amenities, standard experience. But as membership fees skyrocket, we should expect more. I was more wowed by the Greenwhich and Flatiron renovation than this...