I knew Jay Chung before Prototype existed. We met years before I opened the gym's doors in 2012, through a loose group of Westborough business owners who got together more to hang out than to actually network. At the time, Jay and his wife Debbie already owned Sapporo Korean BBQ — right next door to where I'd eventually open the gym. Once I opened, our two businesses shared a wall for the next seven years — barbells rattling the dishes, members grabbing a drink there while they waited on their kids — right up until Jay and Debbie sold Sapporo in August 2019.
The friend group that brought us together started small — just a few guys who got together to hang out — and grew and grew from there. We even gave it a name we're not especially proud of: Team Soju, after the Korean spirit that outsells every other liquor in the world by volume. We didn't do much actual networking. Mostly we just talked over each other. Sapporo was the spot we'd all meet. It's how Jay and I became friends, long before there was a gym for him to join.
Jay's been a member since we opened in 2012 — literally day one. Debbie joined a year later, in 2013, a year after Ben was born. She's said before that she almost didn't. She was self-conscious after having a baby, and had the idea that CrossFit meant nothing but noise and grinding intensity. That wasn't an unfair read of the gym back then — in the early days we leaned harder into pure intensity than we coach for today, before we'd built out the scaling and systems we use now. Her first class was on the turf, before we'd even finished building out the space, and by her own telling it wasn't glamorous — she nearly got sick before it was over. She came back the next day anyway, and the day after that.
"I came back for more the next day. And then the next. That's how I got started."
— DebbieJay's own introduction to competition day had nothing to do with our coaching — someone outside the gym told him to skip food entirely before one of our first internal competitions and lean on pre-workout instead. He was outside getting sick by the third heat. It's a story he still tells on himself.
The Restaurant Next Door
Sapporo had already been open for years by the time I opened Prototype right next to it in 2012. Jay's family had always been in restaurants, and Debbie's father eventually came to work there too. The proximity produced its share of gym lore — including the day Debbie's water broke with their daughter Sam while Jay was mid-workout next door. Coach Jon — who was working the host stand at Sapporo part-time back then, while he was still learning the ropes here at Prototype — had to relay the message by phone. What came through was "there's a water break." Jay ran home expecting a flooded basement.
"There was no way I was gonna not come to the gym," Jay says of those early years. "It was just too convenient, too great a product, too great people, too great a place. I was sold from day one."
"It was just too convenient, too great a product, too great people, too great a place. I was sold from day one."
— JayJay and Debbie sold Sapporo in 2019 after owning it for around thirteen years. They opened Soul Kitchen in 2014, and today it has two locations — Westford and Leominster.
Giving Back
Jay started a charity called Eat to Give a few years back: participating restaurants set aside a dollar from select menu items, and that money goes straight to local food banks — no overhead, no cut taken out. But the story he tells that says the most about him happened during a government shutdown that froze SNAP benefits for millions of families, including, by his estimate, close to a third of Massachusetts. Rather than wait on a plan, Jay opened up Soul Kitchen's takeout program to anyone affected.
"It turns out it was hundreds of phone calls as soon as we started that," Jay says. "We ran out of food literally by 12." They prepped more. They ran out again. His staff came back with stories from people who used to be regulars — someone who'd stopped coming in after a hard stretch, suddenly back in the restaurant because the meal in front of them was free. "It's almost like a full circle type thing," Jay says. "Hearing some of those stories was very impacting."
Thirteen Years of Friendships
Ask Debbie what's kept her coming back for thirteen years and the answer isn't training — it's the people. "I've made the closest friends here," she says. "When you come to the gym, you'll see your best friends. I can't picture myself going to any other gym. I feel like home when I'm here." Jay describes the same thing from a different angle: an environment where, in his words, no one has an ego — where people who've done genuinely impressive things in their careers don't lead with it, because the relationships come first.
That ethos showed up clearly when a member in their circle was diagnosed with cancer. She'd already shaved her head by the time the group gathered to support her — so everyone decided to wear bald caps as a surprise. She walked in wearing a wig. Everyone else was bald. "It was so funny, but it was such a great thing to get together and support her," Jay says.
Getting Stronger With Age
Debbie joined Prototype in 2013. "I didn't know how to work out at 31," she says. "It's pretty cool to see that I'm getting stronger as I'm getting older." Jay describes a similar shift in how he approaches training now versus when he started — less about going all-out every session, more about understanding the goal and working toward it deliberately, a lesson he says carried over into how he runs his business too.
Jay and Debbie's kids — their daughter Sam and younger son Ben — grew up literally between the two buildings, one where their parents worked, one where their parents trained. Sapporo is somebody else's business now. Jay sometimes trains alongside Ben these days. Fourteen years after Jay first walked through our doors, the restaurant next door came and went. The gym is still theirs.
