By Erin Bank

A little bit of the Inner Sunset has come to the Richmond District, with the opening of the second location of The Yoga Shala on Balboa Street at 21st Avenue.

Owned and managed by Brittany Lamb, who describes herself as a one-woman show, the new Balboa yoga studio opened its doors in December 2024 with a variety of yoga and Pilates classes.

“Being in a yoga community is so supportive,” Lamb said.

She is part of that support, contributing to a vibrant yoga community across the Sunset and Richmond districts.

For Lamb, owning a yoga studio is a dream come true. She started practicing yoga in college and knew right away she wanted to pursue teaching and eventually open her own studio. When she first started teaching in 2014, she was terrified.

“The beginning can be so hard, and I almost walked away from it,” Lamb said.

At the same time as she was beginning her journey as a yoga teacher, Lamb got a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into operating a small fitness business. She worked as a marketing manager for MindBody, a fitness and wellness management software company.

“I knew the ins and outs of hundreds, maybe thousands, of business owners,” Lamb said.

In 2020, Lamb finally had the opportunity to manage a yoga studio herself, which gave her the experience and confidence to fulfill her dream of owning one of her own.

“I was managing, teaching, doing everything at this studio in San Francisco. I thought, ‘I can do this,’” she said.

In 2022, after searching all over the City for a studio, Lamb found an Inner Sunset space at Judah Street and 10th Avenue. It had previously been a yoga studio but had been sitting empty for more than two years.

“We gave it a little face lift,” she said. “It feels like I’m in a friend’s living room. It doesn’t have a corporate feel.”

Shala is Sanskrit for “home.” The space is designed to feel funky and fun, with lavender floors, a big gold wall, colorful pillows and art contributed from community members. After the studio opened, it was clear that demand for such a space was high. Classes, which are all heated to 90 degrees, started selling out. It did not take long for Lamb to start thinking about expanding to a second location.

“I felt like I was ready from an ownership standpoint,” she said. “It’s so fun to build communities, and I wanted to give people another studio option.”

Lamb was thrilled when she found a second space, a former law office, just across the park.

“I love that the Sunset and Richmond feel like neighborhoods where people know their neighbors and are down-to-earth. It’s a great place for building a community,” she said.

The stress Lamb felt while opening the second location centered around navigating city permitting and zoning. Because the space was a former law office, it had to undergo an occupancy code change before she could begin turning it into a yoga studio, a process that took about six months.

If the Inner Sunset studio is yang, then Balboa is yin, with tall wooden ceilings, more earth tones, a backyard garden and no formal lobby space – patrons walk directly into the studio.

“It’s my little baby, still developing its personality,” Lamb said.

She said marketing the new space has been more difficult due to lower foot traffic and no history of a prior yoga studio occupying the space. But she is undeterred.

“Come check out the spaces, let us know what you want to see,” she said. “These are community spaces for conversation, connecting with people, meeting someone new and events.”

The studios offer a variety of yoga, Pilates and meditation classes, most led by teachers Lamb has trained herself. She describes her teachers as being unique with different backgrounds and many with full-time jobs. When she teaches, she shares her story of how difficult it was for her in the beginning with aspiring teachers to assure them that it is worth sticking with. Lamb even continues to teach yoga classes as well, although it is a lot to juggle with the rest of her responsibilities as a business owner.

“I just love teaching so much,” she said.

Yoga Shala is located at 455 Judah St. in the Sunset and at 2010 Balboa St. in the Richmond. For more information, visit theyogashalasf.com.