JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS

Episode 519: Neata Goutier of Sabai Thai Spa - Vancouver, BC. From Thai Village to Seven Spas. The Story of Community and Franchises. A Journey of Trees, Kelp and Consistency. Building a Dynasty.

Nuttha Goutier · February 17, 2026

Entrepreneur · Wellness · Leadershipin

Interview with Nuttha Goutier

Episode 519: Neata Goutier of Sabai Thai Spa - Vancouver, BC. From Thai Village to Seven Spas. The Story of Community and Franchises. A Journey of Trees, Kelp and Consistency. Building a Dynasty. — Nuttha Goutier

Podcast: JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS

February 17, 2026 · 1 hr 43 min

How does a young girl from a tiny Thai village with no running water build a multi-location spa empire in Canada, all while preserving the authentic, communal spirit of her homeland? In this deeply restorative and insightful episode of the JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS…

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Episode 519: Neata Goutier of Sabai Thai Spa - Vancouver, BC. From Thai Village to Seven Spas. The Story of Community and Franchises. A Journey of Trees, Kelp and Consistency. Building a Dynasty.

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JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS

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Key topicsOpen Arms — The Franchise Manual That Begins With the WelcomeNuttha Goutier put the welcome on page one. A Certified Franchise Executive who has grown Sabai Thai Spa to seven Canadian locations across nearly two decades, she argues most franchisors get the order backwards, standardising the treatment while leaving the greeting to whoever happens to be on shift. Her franchisee training starts with the arrival instead: the warm greeting, the scent, the pace, taught as the part of the brand that cannot be improvised. She is direct about the limits, naming which Thai hospitality rituals can be written down, which only survive if the owner models them daily, and where standardisation quietly removes the thing guests came back for. Anyone running a multi-site service business gets a test they can apply this week: open the operations manual at page one and see whether it describes a process or a person.Field Study — How a Village With No Electricity Trained a Seven-Location Franchise FounderNuttha Goutier got her business training in a Thai village with no running water and no electricity. She spent her childhood gathering herbs alongside local healers and her grandmother, in a place where healing was part of ordinary life rather than something booked and paid for. A Certified Franchise Executive who has grown Sabai Thai Spa to seven Canadian locations over nearly two decades, she sets that upbringing against the formal syllabus of unit economics, territory planning and compliance, and is specific about which one governs the harder calls. She names the growth decisions where the credential won and the ones where the village won. Franchise developers and wellness founders leave with a blunt test for their own plans: list the judgement calls the training never covered, then say who on the team is qualified to make them.Please and Thank You — Running Seven Canadian Spa Locations on the Manners Most Bosses Grew Out OfNuttha Goutier runs a seven-location Canadian spa franchise on habits most leadership advice files under soft: greeting by name, asking before instructing, thanking staff in front of guests. She is a Certified Franchise Executive and was named one of the 10 Most Influential Wellness and Franchise Leaders of 2025, and she treats those manners as the method rather than the decoration. She walks through where politeness held a call a harder style would have forced, and where being an Asian woman in North American business meant warmth got read as weakness before it got read as authority. Listeners leave with a test for whether their own team behaves the same way on a bad week as on a good one.View all topics →

About Nuttha Goutier

Founder and CEO of Sabai Thai Spa

20+ years Leading a Thai-inspired wellness brand7 Sabai Thai Spa locations openedAward-winning Sabai Thai Spa brandFounder Sabai Thai Spa

Growing up in a Thai village without running water or electricity, Nuttha Goutier saw healing as part of life, not a luxury. Days spent gathering herbs with local healers and learning from her grandmother taught her that wellness was about community, presence, and simple daily practices. When she moved to Canada, she was struck by how spas often felt sterile, rushed, and focused on transactions instead of connection. She dreamed of creating a space where guests felt welcomed like family, somewhere that could bring the sensory richness of Thai hospitality to a new place.

Nuttha opened Sabai Thai Spa to offer guests more than a service: from warm greetings to calming scents, every element was chosen to help people slow down and feel cared for. The immediate response from the community confirmed the need for a spa that offered genuine warmth. Over nearly two decades, she has expanded Sabai Thai Spa into a franchise recognized for its immersive Thai-inspired environments and consistently attentive service.

Through franchising, Nuttha aims to make wellness a regular part of life for more people, helping communities embrace massage and self-care as everyday practices rather than rare indulgences.

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About this episode

How does a young girl from a tiny Thai village with no running water build a multi-location spa empire in Canada, all while preserving the authentic, communal spirit of her homeland?

In this deeply restorative and insightful episode of the JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS Show, host Justin Bizzarro welcomes Neata Goutier, the founder of Sabai Thai Spa, an established brand with seven corporate locations in Vancouver and a newly launched franchise model. This is a conversation about the intersection of hospitality, healing, and the long-game of building a legacy business.

Neata’s story begins in a 200-person village in Thailand, where community support was a way of life and natural healing—through herbal remedies and massage—was a daily routine. Discover how she identified a massive cultural gap when she moved to North America: a fast-paced society that felt guilty about self-care. Neata opened her first spa 20 years ago with less than $1,000 and a vision to create a sanctuary where Westerners could experience the warmth, five-sense hospitality, and preventative health benefits of traditional Thai culture.

This episode is a masterclass in slow, sustainable growth. Neata details her evolution from an exhausted owner-operator to a strategic CEO. She explains the critical importance of stepping back to work on the business rather than in it, the necessity of trusting your team, and why she spent nearly three years meticulously building out her systems and SOPs before ever offering a franchise.

More than just a business playbook, this is a profound discussion on purpose. Neata and Justin delve into the difference between a money-driven "sole proprietor" and a true "entrepreneur" who seeks to elevate the world. Learn about Sabai Thai Spa’s incredible commitment to the environment—planting a tree for every massage and kelp for every product sold—and why Neata believes that the ultimate superpower in business is finding joy in the journey and leaving the world better than you found it.

Key Takeaways

Cultural Translation: How Neata successfully introduced the Thai philosophy of holistic, preventative self-care to a fast-paced North American market.

The Power of Grassroots Marketing: Building a customer base by physically knocking on doors, introducing the business to neighbors, and sponsoring local sports teams and schools.

Scaling with Systems: Why it took two and a half years to build the foundational systems (HR, accounting, training) required to support a franchise model, ensuring long-term success over rapid expansion.

From Operator to CEO: The necessary, often difficult transition of handing over the keys to management and stepping back to focus on business development.

Purpose-Driven Profit: How tying the business to environmental restoration (planting trees and kelp) provides deep motivation and connects the brand to a larger global mission.

IG: @sabaithaispa

Address: www.sabaithai.com

Entrepreneur interested in being on the show: https://calendly.com/justin-bizzarro/podcast

Hosted By: Justin Ryan Bizzarro (IG: @justinbizzarro and LinkedIn: FOLLOW ME )

Who is Justin Ryan Bizzarro? – Justin Bizzarro is a serial food, restaurant, technology, media and marketing entrepreneur, who helped build a 24-year-old group of food and restaurant related businesses, he created with his father and business partners out of his family’s basement, in 1998. He is a highly desired business management, personal and athlete growth, free market, food diversity, and entrepreneurial leadership speaker. Justin’s expertise are in human growth, motivation, leadership and management development, health foods and beverages, global lean manufacturing facilities, vertically integrating businesses, food marketing and advertising, supply chain creation and management, direct to consumer fulfillment, transportation and distribution, personal brand building, restaurant development and construction, and entrepreneur acceleration. Justin received his BA in International Business and Management from Dickinson College, in 2002, and his MBA from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity in Leadership from Denver Seminary. His leadership and entrepreneur podcasts have positively impacted millions of people across the globe.

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Free Podcast. No Advertisements. The stories of Food, Beverage, Farming, Hospitality, and Nutrition Entrepreneurs and how their failures led to the successes in their lives and in their business. What does the future have in store for the food, beverage, and nutrition entrepreneur?

JUSTIN AND THE [FOOD] ENTREPRENEURS

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Guest: Nuttha Goutier