Rest, Rejuvenate, Repeat at Recess

To borrow a phrase from Stefon, SNL’s fictional arbiter of cool, Montreal‘s hottest club is Recess. Opened in September 2025, the thermal station is not in fact a nightclub, but its mission to encourage guests to meet, mingle, and socialize is very much aligned.

Like the baths of ancient Rome and the modern social sauna culture of Scandinavia, Recess is less a place to enjoy the silence than to engage in communal connection by design. Co-founders Marilyne Gagné and Adam Simms created Quebec’s first social thermal station in the heart of Montreal’s historic and trendy Griffintown to optimize mental and physical health and combat postpandemic social isolation by fostering community and human relationships.

“People come to Recess for contrast therapy (defined as a series of brief, repeated immersions in water, alternating between warm and cold temperatures), but they stay for the community,” Simms says.

For urbanities working remotely in solitude, Recess represents a (literally) warm space to step out of isolation, reconnect with their local community, and share time both new and familiar faces.

The steamy centrepiece of the thermal station is the bright and contemporary 50-person capacity coliseum-style wood-toned sauna designed by Montreal-based Future Simple Studio. Hot stones are housed in the cylindrical drum centred in the sauna, encircled by tiered slatted benches. Light pours from a ceiling oculus and from underneath the benches, helping participants centre themselves in the space and focus on their wellness practice.

Guests can choose to follow their own therapeutic rhythm on a Freeflow circuit or book guided 75-minute badstu classes (a calm and slow Nordic tradition), breath work, or stretch exercises that alternate between the warm sauna and cold plunge pool.

The hot cycle is followed by guided or freeform dips in the blue-toned space that hosts the 22-foot ice bath plunge pool. The change in mood and lighting helps guests steel themselves for the invigorating ice bath immersion, but recovery awaits in the nearby social lounge, separated by a frosted-glass sliding door.

The social lounge encourages participants to linger, chat with new friends, listen to a DJ set, or rest before repeating as many hydrotherapy cycles as they wish in the 75-minute sessions.

Co-founder Marilyne Gagné says that guests coming to the bathhouse anticipate the spa experience but quickly realize they can care for both physical and mental health and build relationships in a welcoming environment expressly built for that purpose.

“Guests expect contrast therapy, then discover guided rituals, recovery-focused sessions, and special events with live music and DJs, film events, and date nights,” she notes.

Building on the enthusiastic reception and success of its Griffintown space, Gagné is scouting new locations to expand the benefits and blessings of communal thermal spaces. She intends for Recess to “meet people where they are,” one spa session at a time.

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