If you look around, you’ll see that we’re in the middle of a health and wellness renaissance. From cold plunges to infrared saunas, this health-conscious resurgence is beckoning us all to invest in ourselves in a post-Covid era. 

To complement this resurgence, former MLB star, TCU Hall of Famer, and ThrIVe Drip Spa founder Royce Huffman is bringing IV therapies to a Texas city near you. As ThrIVe opens their newest location in Fort Worth, and one coming soon in Dallas, Royce sat down with TLM to discuss the benefits of IV therapy and what’s ahead for ThrIVe.

Can you tell me about yourself? How did Thrive Drip Spa come about?

A little background. I grew up in Houston and went to high school in Missouri City—Elkins High School—and I got a scholarship to play football and baseball at TCU. I played four years in football and four years in baseball and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at TCU. Then I got drafted by the Houston Astros in 1999 and played eleven years of professional baseball. I finished my last years with the Rangers in 2009. After that, I got into the medical device business. I got to know my business partner with ThrIVe through that. We started this ThrIVe concept in Houston, opened the first doors in April 2016. And we started it off just kind of as a place for us to get IVs because there wasn’t a luxury spot for us to get IVs. We had visited them in different cities and thought that Houston would be a good spot for one. And it worked! All of a sudden, we had a business.

In 2018 we built our second location and in 2019-2020 we built our third location. We were ramping up our franchise offering and got that off the ground in 2021. Since then, we’ve scaled. Slowly, on purpose and then not on purpose. Some exterior things that came into play when we were trying to scale was COVID. Then our business doubled during that time because a lot of people started to invest more time and education into their wellness and were seeking us out just to stay healthy and to keep their immune system up.

This Fort Worth location will be our 10th location to open. We’ve got five more that are set to open probably by June of this coming year, and we’ll probably have 15 more next year.

Why do you recommend an IV treatment?

The biggest hurdle in this industry, not just us but other spas as well, is consumer education. How do you let people know that you can get an IV at a spa rather than go to the emergency room? A lot of people come to us really wanting energy and mental clarity. And I thought, getting into this business, it was going to be mainly hangovers. And that’s really 10 to 15% of our business. On that note, our most popular drip is the Myers Drip which hits a little bit of everything. Energy. Wellness.

And everybody’s chronically dehydrated. There’s not a person out there that’s not chronically dehydrated. One IV liter is equivalent to drinking 2 gallons of water. You’re getting 100% absorption of what you’re putting in. But saying that doesn’t mean you should stop drinking water. It just helps everything flow better. It helps with your mood. It helps you sleep. There’s so many benefits from IV therapy.

What would you recommend for someone on their first drip?

I think the Myers Drip is really the base.  And we have different boosters you can add in. It really depends on how you’re feeling or what’s been going on in your life that week. One of our premium boosters and drips, the NAD+, is really great for recovery, anti-aging, and mental clarity. That’s really our most potent and popular premium drip that we have.

We have 12 different signature drips that we offer that hit anywhere from a Beauty to a Slim Drip to a Hangover drip to a Fit Drip. So, depending on what you’re looking for, we have a solution for you.

Can you tell us any success stories from clients or anything that you would like to highlight?

One thing that I think is important to highlight about us is my business partner. He’s a physician and has been practicing for 25-30 years. He graduated from MIT at the top of his class, and his brother, who is our Chief Medical Officer, went to Harvard. So we have that type of education and experience behind our team. It’s behind the things that we do.

And we have some really good success stories, too. The one that comes to mind is from one of our clients that was going through chemotherapy. He found us through his nutritionist. I asked him, “Why did you come to see us?”. And he said, “Royce, you know, going through chemo is like going through the worst flu you could ever think about for three days. And when you go through it, it’s just miserable. You hit a wall. And when I started getting these IVs with vitamin C before I did the chemo, then after, it made that process manageable. I can skip through it to see light at the end of the tunnel, rather than getting beat down every week and losing that will.”

And I think that particular case really hit home with me. He’s in remission now, cancer free. And the drips had nothing to do with that, but it just gave him that little extra boost to make it through those tough days.

There’s a bunch of other services on your website as well. Can you talk about these?

We have a really good relationship with BTL Aesthetics, and they have some really cool machines for body contouring that are non-evasive. The technology is top of the line. We have EMSculpt NEO, which focuses on muscle growth and fat reduction. You can use the NEO on your abs, glutes, arms, etc. There’s a couple of different things other than aesthetics that it targets. It really helps if you’re having back pain. It really helps with strengthening your core. We also have the EMFACE, which noninvasively contours your face and facial structure. It helps with getting rid of little chin problems, like the turkey neck if you will. Also, it lifts your face and gets rid of wrinkles. The other one that we have is the EMTONE, which is for skin tightening and cellulite reduction. You can combine the EMScope and NEO with the EMTONE to get the best results. We’re actually running a deal right now. It’s called Bod by ThrIVe, where we’ve partnered with local gyms at each location, as well as My Fit Foods. Here in Dallas Fort Worth, it’s Rev Fit and in Houston it’s a Luma sweat.

And what we do with the package is if you buy a Bod by ThrIVe with us, you get workouts for a month to go along with the EMScope treatments as well as 28 days worth of food from My Fit Foods to help with your diet. And while it’s not a miracle machine, you have to do your part outside of the treatment, it’s a way of making sure we’re doing what they need to see the maximum results.

Do you see any interest from clientele in the boxing and mixed martial arts community? Or any other sports?

We have Sugar Sean O’Malley! He comes in every time he’s in Houston. And we partner with a couple of  MMA guys in the Houston area. It’s really good, especially after weigh-ins, to rehydrate and get ready for their match. We work with athletes all the time; especially with me being a former athlete, I have a lot of connections in that space. We have guys come in from the professional level. Texans, Astros, University of Houston, TCU. They come in and utilize our services as well.

You’re a TCU alumnus, how does it feel coming back to Fort Worth?

It’s great! I’ve always wanted to come back to Fort Worth. When I was in Fort Worth for school, my intention was always to live here and work here. When I got drafted, I was working in the offseason in Houston, where I was from. Then I got married, had kids. Life happened. So I just planted roots there. It was tough to get back, but the time was right for us to come up here. My son is actually a freshman here at TCU, so it gives me an excuse to come up here and see him as well. And both of my brothers live in Fort Worth. I’m really tied into the Fort Worth community even though I don’t live here. I’m up here a bunch, especially in football season and baseball season.

What’s next for the Drip Spa?

That’s a good question. There are some things coming down the pipeline from a regulatory standpoint, which is a good thing. It will enable us to bring in other services if we choose to. We’re currently restructuring too. So to be able to do that and comply with what we think is coming down the pipeline from a regulatory standpoint, we’ll be able to offer things like peptides. We’re looking at a whole bunch of different things that we haven’t considered before.

To stay ahead of the game, in our Dallas location we are going to offer for the first time an infrared sauna with a cold plunge. It’s funny because that’s coming into vogue now. But when I was playing baseball, I was in a cold tub every single night. And I just lived and died by it. It was the best. I understand why they’re doing it. It works. That’s something we’re trying to implement in our Dallas location.

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Cover photo. Photo courtesy ThrIVe Drip Spa

Martin Ramirez is a brisket-eating, Shiner-loving, road-tripping enthusiast of all things Texas. This Dallas-born writer / adventurer is ready to take his ‘78 El Camino to find the best in food, fun, and fitness throughout the Lone Star State.