Dive Brief:

• Casper on Wednesday opened a lounge and series of sleeping nooks designed to promote relaxation and napping, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive. The experiential concept, dubbed the "Dreamery," is located at its Mercer Street location in New York City.

• Nap sessions, which cost $25 for 45 minutes, can be booked online or in the store, or through ClassPass and MINDBODY health club/wellness memberships. Walk-ins are also welcome, the company said. 

• The location will also host various events focused on sleep and wellness, according to the release.

Dive Insight:

New York may be "the city that never sleeps," but not if Casper has any say. The mattress startup has deployed its recent funding (led by partner Target last year) to expand into brick-and-mortar. But it turns out that its stores aren't just for showcasing its mattresses — the startup wants to corner the market on ZZZs.

There are few things more on-brand for a mattress-and-pillow company than providing not just the bedding but also the sleep itself. It's all about promoting sleep as important to wellness, according to Casper co-founder and COO​ Neil Parikh.

"The Dreamery is about making sleep and rest a part of our regular wellness routines — similar to how many people prioritize a workout class," he said in a statement. ​"The concept enables us to pilot new ways of bringing better sleep to more people and to more places — whether that’s here, the workplace, airports or beyond."

Casper, founded in 2014, has along with fellow upstarts upended mattress retail, sending legacy retailers like department stores and discounters scrambling. The startups have eschewed humdrum showrooms and convoluted pricing in favor of keeping their "mattress-fits-most" offers in basic bed sizes at a single price paired with long try-out times and free returns.

Casper has plenty of competition, including from mass merchants looking to increase their furniture and home goods sales. Amazon, for example, launched two furniture brands in November. And earlier this year, Walmart announced a new in-house mattress brand, Allswell, as part of a revamped online home destination effort.

But Casper is breaking out, with locations that include home-like spaces and sales through Target, and now an opportunity to not just lie down for a minute or two on its mattresses but to actually sleep on one. In addition to its standalone stores, the company has also run a series of pop-up stores in Los Angeles, New York and London.

The mattress seller's New York nap station also joins a host of experiential retail concepts in New York, such as the game station-filled Nintendo store, Sephora's Beauty TIP workshop and a commerce-free, funhouse-like Coach pop-up.