Social media has helped many businesses launch, get attention and succeed. Whether it be a new art, music or food business, it’s a tool that can bring awareness and help businesses flourish, create relationships, receive feedback and solidify their identity to the consumer.
With the power of social media and word of mouth, The Rose Hour—which began offering pilates classes at Hartnell Park in South Salinas, and was first known as “pilates classes by Dalila”—is growing. Its studio, located in downtown Salinas, opened in August 2025 and is currently undergoing renovations, including a limewash to be finished by the end of June.
While there are other wellness studios in the surrounding area, The Rose Hour makes sure to embrace Brown culture. In Latino culture, wellness has historically been deprioritized, not out of indifference, but out of love, putting families first and everything else second, founder Dalila Alvarado says.
“The importance of wellness and longevity is not really prioritized in Latino culture, and that's not to say that we don't take care of ourselves, but rather Latinos often come to the U.S. seeking a better life and working long hours, so diet and exercise become the last thing on their minds,” says 32-year-old Alvarado, who was born in Mexico and came to East Salinas in the first grade.
Alvarado has a public health degree and before teaching wellness classes worked as a food systems lead at the Blue Zones Project. She worked with restaurants to create more plant-based dishes and grocery stores to bring programs such as the Double Up Food Bucks to their stores.
She started teaching pilates classes at the park in August of 2024 after driving far to attend other studios and “not feeling like home.”
“Eventually I would also do pilates classes at the beach. I was out in Marina and people would drive out there,” Alvarado says.
The space she created is intended for minority groups where they can feel welcomed and included to care for their health.
“I think The Rose Hour has done an excellent job at starting a movement, literally, to get Latinas to get to know their bodies through intentional breathing and movement,” says Christina Cervantes, a first-generation Mexican-American client who was born and raised in Salinas.
Cervantes has been attending Alvarado’s pilates classes since she discovered them through a friend, starting at Hartnell Park in April of 2025. She now attends pilates two to three times a week and zumba once or twice a week.
Last month, Paola Delgado, a dance instructor, joined Alvarado and merged everything under The Rose Hour, named for the tropical sunsets of Mexico.
“A lot of wellness studio spaces are very ivory or neutral tones and The Rose Hour represents the opposite of what the standard pilates industry is, instead representing warm and colorful skies,” Alvarado says.
A new instructor has also been added to teach yoga classes.
“A Latina-led pilates-dance-yoga studio is so important at a time when safe places for many of us are harder to come by,” Cervantes says. “And frankly, pilates is seen as an extracurricular for wealthy women. I’ve seen it mocked on TikTok with videos saying, ‘how do you afford pilates?’ and showing clips of their wealthy husbands.”
For her, pilates has been helpful in managing Type 1 diabetes and also helped her recover from a back injury after a car accident last year. “I, a plus-size woman, have always felt welcomed and celebrated at The Rose Hour,” she says.
On Friday, May 29, beginning at 6:30 pm The Rose Hour will have a pilates and heels workshop called “Afterhours” that will focus on teaser progression, a challenging V-shaped balancing exercise, hip mobility and glute activation. Plus an hour of floor-work choreography in heels. The workshop is $35 for members and $55 for newcomers.
“It's been really rewarding, because I have a strong vision of where I want this space to take and to go, and to see the receptiveness from people and see the potential that I can have is what keeps me going,” Alvarado adds. “I would say it's been a lot of fear, but it's a lot of growth as well.”
The Rose Hour is at 7 E. Gabilan St., Salinas. To book a class call (831)-905-7342 or visit the website.