The ownership is the best part of this story: no private equity, no venture capital — a franchisee who ran five stores bought the whole brand with savings and an SBA loan, which is about as grassroots as chain succession gets. What keeps 16 Handles yellow is what that ownership is building: a coast-to-coast franchise expansion — 25 deals signed in 2025, California, Georgia, and Rhode Island entering development — where wages and working conditions are set shop-by-shop by dozens of franchisees with no published system standards. Independent hands on the wheel; a franchise machine on the road.