Crunch gym ‘boots’ rival gym owner David Barton and wife Susan Bartsch
We’ve heard of roid rage, but this is abs-n-glute-ly ridiculous.
It seems that the folks at Crunch Fitness aren’t thrilled to learn that David Barton is back in the body business.
Page Six hears that the Crunch in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood booted the gym guru and his wife — nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch — last month when management learned that he was building a rival sweatbox nearby.
Barton was billed in the 1990s as the man who “made working out cool” with his night-club-like gyms. But the chain shut down in 2016, and he sold his other gym, TMPL, the following year.
Meanwhile, we’re told the pair had been regulars of the Crunch location on 19th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues since the pandemic.
But a source close to the couple tells us that in late April, Bartsch went in for a workout only to be “verbally” told, according to sources, that she and her husband were no longer welcome because of his new venture, U, which is set to open four blocks north on 23rd Street in the old Chelsea YMCA, across from the Hotel Chelsea.
We hear Barton’s not sweating it. “He was a little amused,” said an insider.
The vast, 35,000-square-foot, three-story U is set to open on May 31.
When he announced the new venture last year, Barton told us, “I am building a place where my trainers can push your limits with machines so innovative that NASA has considered bringing them to Mars.”
He added, “Simulated brain waves will convince your glutes they just did 100 squats.
“At U, every time you leave, you can walk out a different person than the one who walked in the door,” he promised.
The couple married in 1995 and have split a couple of times.
Crunch Fitness didn’t get back to us.
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