(FORTUNE Magazine) – Business minds greater than ours have already found ways to make consumers pay for water and air (hellooooo, Las Vegas oxygen bar), so why not sleep? Arshad Chowdhury and Christopher Lindholst recently opened MetroNaps, the first daytime sleeping salon in the U.S. Located on the 24th floor of New York City's Empire State Building, MetroNaps hopes to provide a quiet sanctuary where rundown corporate drones can recharge.

The dimly lit, one-room salon is furnished with eight sleeping pods--basically fancy dentist's chairs covered with a fiberglass half-dome. A CD of nature sounds and thick headphones are provided to each sleeper, but the room's humming white-noise machine effectively drowns out most other sound, including the snoring of the weary soul one pod over.

Each session costs $14 (though monthly all-you-can-snooze plans are available) and lasts 20 minutes--a length the founders chose because research suggests that anything longer would mean the napper would be roused from deep REM sleep and be in worse shape than before.

When naptime is over, a light comes on in the ceiling of the pod, and the chair vibrates gently. The occupant then stumbles over to MetroNap's "wake station," where he can chase the cobwebs away with lemon-scented facial spritz and powerful mints.

Chowdhury had the idea to make money off sleep while attending Carnegie Mellon business school. There he charged weary students $1 for snoozes in a fleet of lawn chairs. If his more advanced, higher-cost venture pays off, MetroNaps hopes to expand to other cities. For now, though, those outside the Big Apple will have to catch workday shuteye where they always have: at the morning meeting. --Reed Tucker