Retro Fitness — Local services in Philadelphia

Revising 5 star rating from when I joined, due to experiences with service. I purchased a membership for my college student daughter, who is tight on money, I wanted a place she could go and work out available. She went infrequently for 3 months and every time she went she showed the person at the counter her new member email. Everyone just said "go in" so no worries she went in. Her best friend collapsed from a seizure and determined he had a brain tumor that was cancer. For the next three months she finished college and took care of him daily. Now that he somewhat stable, she is getting back to life, but apparently not back to the gym. The counter person would not let her in when she showed her the email, saying she doesn't even now what she is trying to show her but if she didn't get a membership card, she will not be let in. No offer to get her one, no options, just my daughters problem to get herself a membership card. Feeling uncomfortable she would just leave. I called management to try to resolve this. She made the right choice by walking away, for she was right, it was just going to be a problem and frustration. The manager told me how easy it would be to get a membership card, so non of her people would have not just done it. He went on about this in an effort to make me wrong, like I was trying to pull something on him, the same feeling my daughter had. Not offering to get us membership or what we can do, just pointing out that his staff was right and did not turn her away. One of the times, she had friends with her. Then again to make it her fault he asked why she didn't ask for a manager. Then he laughed and asked how old she is that I am calling for her. Again I saw her point, walk away, there is no reason to deal with people like this. Funny enough he is the one who hung up on me. No attempt to address the situation I presented him, to attempt to offer a solution, as if my daughter and myself had wronged him, he yelled at me and hung up. But to the owners end, they have my money and will definitely keep charging me, so he will probably keep low skilled employees on staff. I think it will be worth the fight to get my money back, as so many of the other reviewers are also plagued by the bad management and customer service, which they feel they are not contractual obligated to provide, but we are contractually obligated to pay. I did follow up with an email reply to the Membership confirmation email telling of the situation, but have not heard back. I will keep an eye out to see if they do stan...

I use this gym mostly for the cardio and weight machines. I’ve been increasingly disappointed with this gym for multiple reasons: Very few people wipe down their cardio equipment even after sweating profusely all over it, so I’m greeted with sticky, sweat-streaked surfaces. The staff should be (but are not) regularly cleaning the machines and not counting on thoughtless customers to do it.

Speaking of thoughtless customers, most users of the weight machines sit/relax on the machines and look at their phones for several minutes between sets, or leave “place markers” e.g. personal belongings on them and walk away to take a break. The other day I started and finished a 15 minute session in this area and a guy had sat motionless on one of the leg machines the entire time watching his phone screen. Paying polite members who are there to get their workouts done and leave shouldn’t have the inconvenience of asking these campers to move - the equipment is for activity, not lounging or reserving over a break. This is a chronic problem and staff should be (but are not) routinely monitoring this and making people move on if they’re not actively using the machine. Same goes for “tag teaming” machines where two or more people monopolize machines with taking protected turns for long periods of time. I don’t know where this trend of entitlement started, but it needs to stop. Additionally, the bathrooms and toilet areas are not kept clean. I see the same soiling in the toilet area from one day to the next meaning they’re not cleaned regularly, and every time I walk into a stall, the toilets are dirty. Do better, staff...

I've been a member since they first opened back in January of 2017 and even though they have undergone a lot of staff turnover (which kind of worried me) I gotta say the gym itself is really good. Its got current up to date & fully functioning equipment (that's hugely important), a variety of classes, also the training staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and very approachable especially Kelly & Ailyn (who are bodybuilding competitors), Jarred (martial arts), and Mike (Combat fitness). Ownership is very attentive & always interested in feedback & ideas on things they can do to improve the gym which is definitely a plus.

The sales staff that greet you when you walk in are great and as corny as it sounds they always seem excited to see you my favorites gotta be Fab, Kieara, my man Awgust (yes that's how he spells it why I dunno, lol!), and Sarah aka Ms. July. But there's 1 guy there that if he was to ever leave I swear the gym would stop functioning & that's my man Ernesto, he's by far the best employee there hands down. I've seen the front desk get slammed with members, potential members, walk-ins who just want a smoothies, and Ernesto handle it all by himself (due to other staff was giving tours) while talking to a potential member on the phone the guys great.

I've been training for 20+ years in & out of different gyms, and this by far has got to be in my top 3 gyms that I've ever been to. If you're serious about your training you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't check this place out, and be sure to ask for my man Ernesto aka NestoFit he'll take great...