Manos Massage and Spa

Manos is a slice of paradise on the west side of Tucson. Evelyn, the owner, is friendly and takes the time to listen to what you need. She has a vast knowledge of all types of massage. She and her staff recently spent a morning at the school I teach at giving complimentary massages to our hard-​working teachers. Thanks for caring!

I have a usual spa I go to regularly, but when I saw a Groupon for a 60 minute massage for $ 29 I was game to try something new.
The suite was hard to find, not clearly labeled at all. The restroom was not in the spa, but was a few doors down. (The entire complex shared one restroom and it was fairly smelly).
The ambiance of the «spa» was terrible. It was a tiny room with one chair and a weird desk that was out of place. I definitely would not call this a spa, but more so one front room and one other room with a massage table.
The table had a weird 1980’s blanket on it. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to lay my body on it, but I had already paid so I was taking that risk. The guy that gave me the massage seemed very new. He was unfamiliar with the building, which was weird. He was a decent massage therapist, but kept talking to me the entire time. I came to relax and not make small talk so I was kind of annoyed. Also, when it came time to roll over from my back to my stomach he had lifted the blanket which was highly inappropriate.
Needless to say, the massage itself was not that great. The ambiance was sketchy and I will definitely not be going back. I will pay my $ 80 for a safe, non-​threatening, relaxed massage.

BEST CHEAP DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE EVER!
I am always in dire need of a massage since I live in NYC and carry heavy bags and walk everywhere. So when I went to Tucson for MLK Day Weekend, my friend Rachael told me there was a deal for $ 29 for an hour-​long massage on Groupon with two free upgrades. And one of the upgrades could be a deep tissue massage (my preference).
First of all, my expectations were pretty low. I’ve never only paid $ 29 for a massage and had a great experience. Also, I have high expectations for a good massage since my shoulders and neck are super tight — so I always needed deep tissue. My massage therapist asked me if there were any areas I wanted to focus on and I stressed that my shoulders/​back/​neck were super tight so I would prefer for her to concentrate on those areas. And she did. The massage was (FOR REAL) deep tissue. I felt like she really listened and worked out a lot of my knots and felt painfully good. She only spent about 5 minutes at the end doing reflexology (my second upgrade), but I didn’t care since I would have probably preferred for the deep tissue massage to go on forever.
They were also EXTREMELY accommodating. We were running pretty late from our last appointment and called them and asked if it was ok to be about 15 minutes late. The receptionist asked if we could just come in a couple hours later — which I later found out was actually my therapist’s lunch break but she just took it earlier since I was late.
I docked off one star (if there was an option for half a star, I would do that) because it was a little hard to find (It was located in a strange office/​plaza kind of thing where nothing is very clearly labeled. Also, the ambiance of the waiting room could be improved upon. When you walked in, there was one chair and the receptionist’s desk seemed a bit out of place. Rachael waited for me during my massage and sat on the floor.
Overall, I would highly recommend supporting this small business!
PROS: GREAT deep tissue massage, wonderful customer service, very reasonably priced
CONS: difficult to find, waiting area could have a better atmosphere/​more chairs