May 25, 2010

Happy Feet

So, my empirical study continues with a visit to Happy Day Spa in Sacramento.

I took my Mom for a belated Mother's Day treat on Sunday. She thanked me multiple times. Yay!

Much like my experience last week, this visit confirmed that reflexology-based foot massages that are actually full body massages in hiding are still my latest guilty pleasure. If you find one near you, please let me know and I'll see what I can do to combine a visit with you and a test. You know, in the name of scientific research.

My hypothesis: Reflexology-based foot soak massage shops are the most undervalued massage service available in California today.

I shall test as many as I can find to see if perhaps they vary in quality, cleanliness, lack of sketchy-massage-parlorness and that only some are truly undervalued and others are actually not worth the $30 (typical price, including tip) for the hour.

For a control group, I'm using my historical massage experience with traditional massage shops in the bay area. If you think you've got a high value massage service I should include in the test, please send it my way!

As for Happy Day Spa sacramento, the chairs were not as cool as the ones at my local joint, so we had to sit on the footstools for the back and shoulder massage at the end rather than laying flat on our stomachs. But, both Mom's masseuse and mine were very skillful and the open room was relatively quiet with whispers from the masseuses and instrumental musac.

We both left relaxed. Mom bought a 10-pack (which she will use at the new branch opening up closer to her home), which gets the price down to $18 per massage. After I complete my local survey, I suspect I may opt into a similar arrangement.

5 comments:

AmyB said...

Thanks to you, I visited Happy Feet in Cupertino/San Jose on Sunday. It was awesome. Will go back. Let me know when you want to do more research.

-a

Biting Tongue said...

Excellent! I need to include the Cupertino location in the survey, clearly.

fiona said...

Tennille, I so want to try this! I'll need to come down the Peninsula, hang out with you and try this place soon. Will have to check with Ryan's other parent to see when I can steal away...

Miss E. said...

There is one in Santa Cruz that does the same thing $25 for the hour, on Soquel. You can include that one too! JE loves it.

Biting Tongue said...

Fi: Let's plan it! I tried the Happy Feet in Monterey last weekend and it was a similar pleasure (although the masseuse was a bit heavy-handed, so if you don't like to be beaten to a pulp your Mandardin would come in handy).