Sacramento Business Journal – The Joint opens first clinic in Sacramento
First chiropractic store chain The Joint opens
By: Kathy Robertson
Senior Staff Writer - Sacramento Business Journal
Published: Mar 14, 2013, 7:48am PDT
A storefront chain that aims to sell chiropractic care to the masses has opened its first Sacramento-area clinic. Five more are in the works.
The Joint Corp. opened a clinic Feb. 27 in Loehmann's Plaza at Fair Oaks and Munroe in Sacramento. Another is scheduled to open in Elk Grove Commons on March 27.
Four more are under construction and expected to open every two weeks thereafter, said Chris O'Neal, one of three members of the O'Neal family that owns a big franchise territory for the business in Northern California.
"We're off to a great start," O'Neal said.
Clinics are pending in the Gold River Town Centre, the Renaissance Creek Center in Roseville, another Roseville location on Pleasant Grove and Lake Crest Village Shopping Center in Greenhaven.
The chiropractic chain is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. and headed by John Leonesio, who founded Massage Envy and turned it into a company with hundreds of locations and annual revenue of more than $300 million. Now CEO at The Joint, he's applied the same growth strategy to chiropractic.
The idea is to sell chiropractic as part of a regular wellness routine and make it affordable and accessible. It's a cash-pay business and does not accept insurance.
The O'Neals and their company, Joint Ventures LLC, have teamed up with San Clemente-based Harkins Chiropractic Corp. at the California clinics. Company CEO and licensed chiropractor Stephen Harkins owns the clinics, as required under California law. They are managed by the O'Neals.
John Cherry is the licensed chiropractor serving patients at the clinic in Loehmann's Plaza. He's been in practice in Northern California since 2008, formerly working at a clinic in Marysville.
"Three weeks into it, I'm kinda surprised how well it's gone," Cherry said of The Joint. "It offers a chance to practice chiropractic without having insurance companies dictate care and compensation. I don't have to do marketing and self-promotion - just be a chiropractor. That's what I was hoping - and that's what it is."
