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Photos by Sarah Owens.
Friends Leah Drury, left, and Lindsey Miller took a risk in 2019 and launched Battle Republic, a boxing-inspired fitness business in downtown Homewood.
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Photos by Sarah Owens.
A “Fight Club Night Club” keychain hangs in the lobby of Battle Republic’s Homewood location. The slogan refers to the atmosphere created by the loud music played during workouts.
In 2019, friends Lindsey Miller and Leah Drury took a risk and launched Battle Republic, a boxing-inspired fitness business in downtown Homewood.
Battle Republic quickly found its niche in greater Birmingham’s competitive fitness community, which not only responded to their blend of high-intensity aerobic and strength training but also sustained them through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"From day one, we knew we were always bigger than the workout. We know that you can go to a thousand different places and get a great workout," Drury said. "From the first time somebody steps into our doors, we want them to feel safe, seen and heard. We want them to feel loved on. Want to take care of them, hold their hand and push them to be the best version of themselves."
Miller and Drury got the idea for Battle Republic after visiting boxing fitness gyms in New York. Inspired, Miller and Drury decided to bring the concept home, and, after some wrangling, managed to secure a spot on the corner of 28th Avenue South and 18th Street South in Homewood’s busy downtown.
They turned to Telegraph Creative to develop their brand and to CCR Architecture & Interiors to transform the site into a modern fitness space. The interior is mostly black, with touches of industrial elements, like exposed ceilings and chains holding large water-filled punching bags, colorful lighting and an energetic playlist curated by Drury.
"There's just something about standing in a room beside each other, physically fighting in a dark room, with really cool lighting," Miller said. "There's just a vibe that's come out of that that has been really neat to see. I think that's really fed into the branding and the voice of what we are and what we do."
"It's like a Southern version of what we saw in New York, where it's highly reliant on a community of people that just fight together and take care of each other, even if they don't even know each other that well," she added.
After launching the Homewood location in early 2019, Drury and Miller decided in August 2020 to open a second location in the Summit. Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of fitness facilities throughout Birmingham, including their Homewood location.
Miller said they had already signed a lease and hired a contractor, so they decided to move forward with the Summit location. Also, since the business was so new and the Summit location had yet to open, they were ineligible for the federal Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans available for existing businesses. Miller and Drury say the pandemic was frightening, but they were able to push through and finally open the new location in December 2023.
"For the first year we were open in Homewood, it was freaking gangbusters. It was so wild how fast people just came in and felt a part of something, and then COVID hit in the middle of us opening at the Summit and the whole industry took a pretty big beating," Miller said. “We're still licking our wounds from 2020 through 2022, but we learned a lot along the way."
“It was one of those things where we're like, 'We have no freaking idea what's about to happen in the world,’” Drury added. “But we're going to do what we said we were going to do. We're not going to go back on our contractor, our landlord or the people that we hired getting ready for this. We're going to figure it out. So we opened at 50% capacity with 100% of the cost."
Now they’re stronger than ever, recently opening a third location in Tuscaloosa and on the prowl for a fourth location. However, they say Battle Republic will always be anchored in the Homewood community that gave them their start.
“We have an office upstairs at that location, and that's for a reason. It's always going to be right where our roots started and where we first saw a community embrace us," Miller said.
"Truth be known, [when] we're talking to a real estate broker, we're like, 'I know you probably can't find another Homewood, but if you can we'd like to go there," she added. "That community has been so good to us. We just love that area."
Visit battlerepublic.com for more information.
