Jones finds Serendipity with own massage biz
Serendipity Massage and Wellness, 9724 Kingston Pike in Franklin Square, Knoxville, will be celebrating a ribbon cutting starting at 3:30 p.m,. Friday, March 26, at its location as a new member of Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s exciting,” said Laura Jones, LMT/owner, who opened Serendipity in October 2020. Learning about the Chamber from a friend, she said she met with Julie Blaylock, its president/CEO, “who’s amazing.
“Just the opportunities that are there to just reach people is great,” Jones added. “And, they’ve been so helpful with this ribbon cutting and everything. Julie’s so sweet.”
On her website, Jones states: “Massage was the dream; Serendipity was the vision; helping people is my life work.”
Serendipity focuses on massage, but “we also branch off into body treatments and foot treatments,” she said. “We are focusing on incorporating herbal medicine into our practice so we can naturally treat issues that people have.”
For example, Serendipity has anti-inflammatory body treatment that incorporates ginger and cardamom, which is good for nourishing the skin while helping with water retention, inflammation and other ailments, Jones said.
“We incorporate a scrub to help the skin, and those oils penetrate your skin,” she added. “We have foot treatments that include a scrub, a mask and body butter on the feet, and we incorporate some reflexology.”
Additionally, Serendipity has a “mini Tennessee” treatment, which Jones said “is probably our most common (treatment) that gets booked.
“We incorporate essential orange oil and vanilla extract into (that treatment),” she added.
Serendipity provides a custom massage, which includes a relaxation/deep tissue (60 to 90 minutes), an upper body massage (30 minutes), MPS session (30 minutes) and a hot stone massage (90 minutes), among others.
Serendipity is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Wednesday; from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday and Friday; from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday; and is closed Sunday.
Appointments can be booked online at serendipitywellnesstn.com or by calling 865-919-8656.
Jones became a massage therapist about four years ago at another business in Bearden.
“I was a single mom and I needed something that would be beneficial but still flexible,” she recalled. “There was no huge ah-hah moment of ‘this is my life calling.’”
That came later — once Jones got into being a massage therapist. Then, she said, “everything clicked and that’s when I had my ah-hah moment … this is exactly what I want to do.”
While she came from a family of nurses, Jones said the nursing field never really attracted her. “I was into a holistic approach, a natural approach, to healing, so (the massage business) just kind of fell into that,” she said.
Jones was with the Bearden business until July 2020, when COVID created changes, which led her and her fiancé to decide she should open her own business. Jones learned about the Franklin Square location from a chiropractor friend who has an office a couple of blocks away.
“I like the look of (Franklin Square), and it’s in a great location, centralized to everything in Knoxville,” she said.
“I didn’t want one of those storefronts, loud and commercialized,” Jones added. “It’s just a little hideaway for people.”
She has three other licensed massage therapists in the business with her as well.
