Fitness Factory

Fitness Factory

212 South Highland Avenue

Grade: B

A combo restroom/locker room is a hard thing to grade, due mostly to the additional filth factor of sweat to compliment the usual bodily wastes one expects to encounter in an ordinary restroom. It almost seems unfair to apply the same standards of cleanliness to a gym's restroom as one would to, say, a restaurant's. On the other hand, you could argue that an gym's restroom/locker room should be even more closely attended than another establishment's, and that therefore the gym's should always be cleaner.

So I'll start by saying that the Fitness Factory's men's room is, above all else, clean. I frequently see employees moving about the place with mops, rags and spray bottles, and the results really do show. There is even a sign on the mirror above the sink asking gym members to wipe standing water from the counter after using the sink.

That said, the restroom is a little on the small side. There is a single stall, urinal, sink, curtained shower stall, bench and row of lockers. The sink and soap dispenser are both manually operated. Even with the size, I've never felt cramped, crowded or rushed in the restroom. Like the Fitness Factory itself, the men's room does plenty with a small space.

Probably my favorite part of this particular lavatory is the open ceiling. That's right; the walls of the restrooms don't extend fully to the ceiling of the gym itself. That means that when you hear a man grunting loudly, it is sometimes hard to tell whether he's doing lat pulldown supersets on the other side of the wall or struggling with the bad tacos he ate on the toilet.

(Note: While this blog as a rule only reviews men's restrooms, it's worth mentioning that there is a clean, comfortable unisex restroom with a lockable door and single toilet in the back of the gym for those who require more privacy or who have done one too many squats and can't make it all the way across the place before puking.)