B Fitness, the Venice-based business was founded by Kim Hackett in 2016. Kim and her husband, Dave are both former journalists who worked for the Herald-Tribune. Kim discovered barre after she left the newspaper business – all the new downtime she had caused her to become more aware of injuries she’d been ignoring. 

Other workouts she tried, with the exception of swimming, only caused more pain. But barre gave Kim the relief that her body so desperately craved. “Even after that first class, when I finished, particularly in my hips I felt something shift,” she said.  

The problem was, there was no barre studio in Venice — she’d have to drive to Sarasota or Lakewood Ranch to get her “fix”, and the commute there and back would end up taking over her day. So, she got certified to teach and practiced her skills in a home studio she and David set up in their garage. 

She initially rented teaching space at Venice Fitness with a pilates instructor, until she and her co-tenant grew so big that they decided to get their own place in South Venice. That was about five years ago. Over time, she added more services, like yoga, total body conditioning, TRX classes and personal training.  

Kim had been wanting to add a retail component to her fitness studio for quite some time. She got the idea on a visit to Syracuse, New York. It was a dream, but it just wasn’t possible in her former space.  

“At my old studio, a couple of years ago, the pilates instructor had her own space and I had my own space, and we were both kind of getting big and bumping into each other. Over time, the front lobby got absorbed into the classroom space,” she said.

B Fitness moved to a bigger, 2,000-square-foot space in Venice’s newly revitalized Jacaranda Plaza, at U.S. 41 Bypass and Shamrock Boulevard in 2021. The new studio has class space for barre, yoga, TRX, and personal training, as well as a retail sales area.