Okra Staff Members Point to Mismanagement in Abrupt Closure
Instructors were taken by surprise when the owner closed up shop, but signs were there
Yoga instructor Claire Santos arrived early to Okra yoga studio in Plaza Midwood on Tuesday, July 22, for the first morning class of the day. She wanted to turn the heaters on for the hot yoga class and make sure everything was set for her students.
Instead, she found an unfamiliar sign taped to the door of the studio on Commonwealth Avenue that read, “Okra is now closed due to staff shortages. Will notify when ready to reopen.”
The news came as a surprise to Santos, who snapped a photo and sent it to the group chat she shared with her fellow teachers to see if anyone knew what was happening. She tried to open the lock box that allowed teachers access to the building but found that the locks had been changed.
When students began showing up for the 9:30 a.m. class, Santos hosted them in the parking lot of the next-door business Gumbo Goods.
“We did the best we could in the circumstances,” she said.
After the class, Okra teachers began sharing available information amongst themselves while reaching out to students who had already booked upcoming classes — a difficult task as Okra’s website was still allowing people to sign up for classes.
Grace Millsap, an Okra massage therapist and yoga instructor, took to Instagram to update students the day the sign went up.
“Without any notice, without any communication, without any consideration for any of the teachers or any of the students, the owner changed the locks, put those signs up and isn’t taking anybody’s phone calls,” Millsap said.
On July 24, Okra ownership announced the temporary closure on their Instagram page, acknowledging the note on the door and the confusion it caused.
”We understand how sudden this was, and we’re truly sorry for the disruption to your classes and sessions,” the post read. “We’re hopeful for a path forward and will share updates as soon as we’re able. Thank you for your patience. We know this space means a lot to many of you.”
Early signs of trouble
The sudden closure of Okra came in the wake of troubling behavior by the establishment’s owner, Hal Smith.
Two weeks before placing the sign on the door, Smith reportedly showed up 15 minutes late to a massage session with a client. While giving the massage, Smith rested his forearm on the client’s back, placed his head on his forearm and fell asleep on top of the client, breathing heavily on their back, according to Rey Culler, another yoga instructor at Okra.
The client woke him up and he continued the massage before stopping again, laying on the floor next to the massage bed and falling back asleep.
After leaving the building, the client reported Smith to the North Carolina Massage Board. In response, the board informed the client that Okra did not even have the necessary licenses to perform massages or employ massage therapists as part of its business.
Though multiple front desk employees have reported telling Smith about the board’s warning, he continued on with massages as normal until the front desk manager told a massage therapist about the business’s lack of a license.
When one of the therapists called the massage board, they were told that if they continued offering massages at Okra they would be charged with a misdemeanor.
Smith, who joined Okra founder Alicia Roskind as a partner in 2015 and eventually took over as majority owner, is listed on the website as being a “Licensed Spiritual Healer, Certified Raindrop Technique Specialist, RYT 200 Yoga Alliance Yoga Instructor, Certified Aroma Yoga Instructor, Certified ChiRunning Instructor, Certified Triggerpoint Myofascial Release Specialist, and Crossfit Trainer.”
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Before the closure, Smith had been rumored to be looking into changing locations, going so far as telling an Okra manager that he had signed a lease for a new, smaller space in Uptown.
When the manager passed the information along to a few of the teachers, staff felt frustrated about the secretive nature of Smith’s dealings, Culler said.
Due to the uncertainty of the studio’s future and lack of communication from Smith, a number of employees put in two-week notices that would take them to the end of July. When the massage therapists learned they were giving massages illegally at Okra, they all quit immediately, along with a few yoga teachers, according to Culler.
Some of Okra’s yoga instructors began discussing the possibility of taking over the lease of the current location to create their own studio. When Smith got word of their plans, he sent an email to all Okra employees addressing the staff departures and rumors about changing locations.
In the July 18 email, which was shared with Queen City Nerve, Smith claimed he hadn’t discussed lease negotiations with his staff because of “confidentially [sic] reasons,” saying: “I know there have been concerns that Okra might close, or might lose its parking spaces behind Gumbo or that we might be forced to move etc etc. I can’t be specific but I can tell you that if we successfully conclude the lease negotiation that none of those rumors would take place.”
Smith denied that he had signed a lease for another location, adding that the current landlord did not agree with Smith’s desired improvements to Okra’s current location.
He claimed he had started looking at other potential locations for Okra to move to before the current landlord expressed interest in renegotiating their lease.
Smith said he had recently learned that many staff members were planning to leave based on these rumors, ensuring that he was happy to meet one-on-one with anyone who had any questions.
“I care deeply for Okra and all of the people who have enjoyed being a part of this beautiful community and I know all of you do too,” the email read. “I am hopeful that we can work together as a team to create new structures of communication and want to collaborate with all of you in planning the future of Okra.”
“Thank you all for everything you have done for Okra,” he continued. “Together you have made Okra the special place it has become and you are loved and appreciated as it is you who have created it.”
Smith asked for any staff that had been planning on staying with Okra to reply to the email, which Culler did.
The staff received no further information from there. Then Santos sent them the photo of the sign on the door.
Smith hadn’t acknowledged or brought up the issues with massage licensing.
“[The email] failed to address a lot of the things that we knew to be true at that point but also refuted that there was anything to worry about,” Santos said.
“I feel like it’s important to note that part of the problem was a lack of communication, a gross lack of communication, beyond there being an absence of proactive conversation … in response to inquiry,” she continued. “So we were all truly in the dark as to what was true or not true and we were doing our best to navigate that.”
With the lack of communication Santos said she wouldn’t be shocked if the teachers didn’t get paid their last paychecks, but on July 29, after a week of silence, Smith sent another mass email addressing payroll.
In it, Smith claimed that Okra’s information system underwent a cyber attack, resulting in the loss of access to Okra’s email and causing Smith to lose all records of employee emails.
“This current attack on Okra has broken our hearts,” Smith said in the email. “We are just now finding a huge number of unauthorized transactions that have taken place since this attack started. It appears that these attacks have been coordinated with the intention of destroying Okra as well as my wife and me.”
Smith claimed the cyber attack completely wiped out Okra’s bank account, forcing him and his wife to take out funds from their personal retirement account in order to complete the employee payroll scheduled for Aug. 1.
Culler said that, despite the reassurances, several teachers did not receive the payments they were owed come Aug. 1.
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In hindsight, some yoga instructors and massage therapists say there were signs over the years that Smith wasn’t interested in cultivating a welcoming atmosphere for his employees.
For example, Santos recalled a time she had a specific question for Smith, who relayed a message to her that he did not want any direct communication with teachers and all questions had to be fielded by a manager.
Culler recalled that when they applied to Okra three years ago, they told Smith that their pronouns were they/them. According to Culler, Smith told them that he “didn’t believe in that stuff” and insisted that ownership wouldn’t be using their correct pronouns.
”So for me, that was a very clear red flag about who this individual was and their belief about how they treat people, which is inherently in direct conflict of what yoga is,” Culler said, “But I don’t teach there for the owner. I teach there for the students so I kind of just overlooked that.”
Queen City Nerve reached out to Smith over email to inquire about all the allegations and claims made by his former staff but have not received a response at the time of this writing.
The former Okra staff pivots
While it’s frustrating that Smith is putting his staff through this, the teachers and massage therapists have banded together in response, Culler said. When the doors closed, teachers immediately rose to the occasion, working together to figure out how to continue providing yoga classes to their students.
”The whole thing has been quite unpleasant,” Santos said. “It’s heartbreaking that a community that’s been so well established and, in many ways, is one of the closest knit communities that I’ve ever been involved in as a yoga teacher, has just sort of abruptly been decimated in important ways.”
While that community is coming back in small pockets, it’s still a big loss, she said.
Teachers have begun settling in at other studios or in their homes, like Santos.
While students can register and find information for Santo’s classes on her website, she has also been building out the City Yoga Collective as a space for independent, Charlotte-area yoga teachers to connect with clients.
Millsap and Catherine Warner, a former Okra teacher and massage therapist, respectively, have launched Moon Wolf with the help of another holistic health practitioner.
Starting Aug. 11, the group will host weekly yoga pop-ups around the Plaza Midwood area, according to its Instagram page.
”And that’s kind of where we’re at at this point,” Santos said. “The community of teachers and students has come together in a really beautiful way … People have really been reaching out and doing our best to support each other.”
Teachers are also offering either sliding scale or donation-based classes, being mindful and supportive of the fact that some students may have signed up and paid for Okra classes before the teachers were able to cancel them on Okra’s website.
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Santos said the best way to follow or reach out to former Okra teachers is through their social media pages, WhatsApp group or by following Millsap’s Instagram account.
Most teachers tag Millsap in their class announcements and Millsap re-shares them in their stories, Santos said.
Though the situation is complex, Culler and the other teachers have continued to keep their messaging light.
”The owner and the studio, the walls of the building didn’t make Okra,” Culler said. “It was the people who made it and we’re still here, wanting to serve and support the community.”
