Playa Bowls franchise cost in 2026: $281,960 to $1,055,594 to open, a $35,000 fee, 6% royalty, and a $1,094,086 median on 223 shops. See the FDD data.
Quick answer A Playa Bowls shop costs $281,960 to $1,055,594 to open per the 2026 FDD, including a $35,000 initial franchise fee and $25,000 more in training and grand opening fees paid to the franchisor. The 223 traditional franchised shops open all of 2025 reported median gross sales of $1,094,086.
Construction and leasehold improvements run $110,000 to $507,000 in the April 30, 2026 disclosure from Playa Bowls Franchisor LLC. That one line swings $397,000, which is more than the entire low-end estimate for opening a shop.
The reason sits in Note 3 of Item 7. The low figure assumes a 1,500 to 2,000 square foot second-generation space that already ran as a similar food business, with working bathrooms and no walls to move. The high figure assumes a shell delivered with HVAC, lighting, and a concrete slab already in, and no landlord improvement allowance. Read that twice. Even the expensive case assumes the landlord has done real work, so a raw cold shell could land above $1,055,594.
The total covers one shop under a single Franchise Agreement. Sign a multi-unit development agreement for 3 to 15 shops and the first-shop estimate becomes $316,960 to $1,300,594, because you prepay $17,500 for each additional shop on top of the first $35,000 fee.
| Item 7 line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $35,000 | $35,000 |
| On-site pre-opening training fee | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| Construction and leasehold improvements | $110,000 | $507,000 |
| Lease deposits and rent, 3 months | $3,000 | $100,000 |
| Furniture, fixtures, equipment | $50,000 | $133,684 |
| Signage | $3,000 | $40,000 |
| Computer, software, POS | $1,500 | $12,000 |
| Grand opening marketing fee | $15,000 | $15,000 |
| Initial inventory | $12,700 | $35,400 |
| Utility deposits | $1,000 | $20,788 |
| Insurance, 3 months | $1,875 | $12,441 |
| Travel for initial training | $1,000 | $13,181 |
| Professional fees | $7,500 | $40,000 |
| Licenses and permits | $385 | $11,100 |
| Additional funds, 3 months | $30,000 | $70,000 |
| Total | $281,960 | $1,055,594 |
The full Item 7 table and fee schedule are on the Playa Bowls dossier, alongside the unit counts by state. Two notes matter for your budget. The equipment estimate assumes you lease some of it and excludes transportation and setup. The working capital line excludes any pay for you and any loan interest.
Item 5 sets the initial franchise fee at $35,000. A first-time franchisee also pays a $10,000 on-site pre-opening training fee, invoiced after a trainer spends up to nine days at your shop, and a grand opening marketing fee of up to $15,000 due at least 120 days before you open. The cover page counts all three: $60,000 goes to the franchisor or its affiliates.
The fee is negotiable in practice, if not on paper. Item 5 says 20 franchisees had their 2025 fees discounted to between $12,500 and $30,000, and Item 6 says nine had royalties cut to 3%, waived for six months, or scaled up with sales. Ask what those buyers committed to.
Ongoing, Item 6 charges a 6% royalty on gross sales and a national marketing fund fee of up to 4%, currently 2%. You must also spend 1% of sales on local marketing yourself. A technology fee of up to $500 a month is allowed but not charged today.
Apply that to the median shop. At $1,094,086 in gross sales, the royalty comes to $65,645 and the marketing fund to $21,882, a combined $87,527 a year leaves your account by ACH. Add the required local spend of $10,941 and 9% of sales is spoken for before fruit, labor, or rent. If the franchisor raises the fund to its 4% ceiling, the same shop sends $43,763 to the fund alone.
The term is 10 years with one 10-year renewal, and renewal costs the then-current initial fee. Item 12 grants no exclusive territory; the designated territory is generally two miles by road and can be smaller in dense markets. Walk away early and the termination loss payment can reach 36 months of average royalty and fund fees.
The headline sample is narrow by design. Of 342 franchised shops at year end, 250 were open for all of calendar 2025. Item 19 then splits those 250. The 223 traditional shops operate from standard retail sites, open year-round. The other 27 are seasonal or captive-market shops in airports, malls, campuses, stadiums, and similar venues, and they are reported in a separate table.
| 223 traditional franchised shops, 2025 | Gross sales |
|---|---|
| Median | $1,094,086 |
| Average | $1,117,488 |
| Top quartile median | $1,549,911 |
| Bottom quartile median | $681,587 |
| Low | $423,386 |
| High | $2,542,966 |
106 of the 223 beat the average. The separate table for the 27 seasonal and non-traditional shops shows a $489,501 median, less than half the headline. If your site is a beach town or a food court, that is your comparison set. The 26 traditional company shops ran a $1,050,862 median, slightly below the franchised figure.
Three things shape the number. Shops opened during 2025 are excluded, and that was 85 openings. Fifteen of the 223 also run a food truck or trailer, and that revenue is counted in their totals. The figures are self-reported and unaudited. Item 19 discloses gross sales only: no cost of goods, no labor, no occupancy, no profit. The Playa Bowls financials page lays out the quartile tables side by side.
Franchised shops went from 136 at the start of 2023 to 188, then 262, then 342 at the end of 2025. Company shops moved from 27 to 30, with 22 of them in New Jersey. In 2025 the system opened 85 franchised shops, terminated 1, reacquired 1, and recorded 3 that ceased operations, all in New York. Non-renewals were zero across all three years.
Transfers deserve a question. There were 2 in 2023, 1 in 2024, and 19 in 2025, ten of them in Pennsylvania. That pattern reads more like one operator selling a group of shops than scattered distress, but the FDD does not say. Item 20 also lists 97 signed agreements for shops not yet open and projects 64 franchised openings in the next fiscal year. Franchisees have signed confidentiality clauses in the last three years, which can make validation calls harder.
Item 1 states that on August 30, 2024, an investment fund managed by Sycamore Partners Management, L.P. acquired a controlling interest in PB Group Holdings, LLC, the franchisor’s direct parent. Sycamore’s only other franchise system is The Goddard School, owned since June 30, 2022 and at 671 schools at the end of 2025. The 2026 disclosure lists John Cappasola as CEO.
What a private equity owner means for you shows up in the fee table more than the press release. The marketing fund can double from 2% to 4% without your consent, and the technology fee is authorized but dormant. Budget for both.
The FDD does not state a net worth or liquidity requirement, so ask for it in writing. Work from the table instead: a second-generation site still needs close to $282,000, and a fresh build can pass $1 million before any landlord allowance. Lenders will want to see the working capital line covered in cash, and the termination loss clause means you should not sign a lease you cannot carry for the full term.
Oakberry USA LLC is the cheaper door into acai. Its 2025 FDD estimates $100,000 to $300,000 for a standard store with a $30,000 fee, and it makes no Item 19 claim, so you would be buying without any sales data.
Smoothie King’s 2026 FDD estimates $329,850 to $1,278,900 and reports a $627,210 median across 1,087 franchised units, which our Smoothie King cost breakdown walks through. Playa’s median runs about 1.7 times that, on a smaller, younger, mostly East Coast base. For the wider category, see the juice and smoothie franchise rankings, the Tropical Smoothie head-to-head, and what a typical franchise costs to open.
The full Playa Bowls FDD analysis, including Item 21 financials and the franchise agreement terms, is available as a $49 report on the Playa Bowls dossier.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,400+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
The 2026 FDD estimates $281,960 to $1,055,594 for a single shop. That includes the $35,000 initial franchise fee, $110,000 to $507,000 in construction, $50,000 to $133,684 in furniture, fixtures, and equipment, and $30,000 to $70,000 in working capital for the first three months.
The median traditional franchised shop did $1,094,086 in gross sales in calendar 2025, on an average of $1,117,488 across 223 shops. Those are sales, not profit. The FDD discloses no food, labor, rent, or earnings figures.
An investment fund managed by Sycamore Partners acquired a controlling interest in the franchisor's parent, PB Group Holdings, LLC, on August 30, 2024, according to Item 1. The franchisor itself is Playa Bowls Franchisor LLC, a New Jersey company based in Belmar.
Oakberry is cheaper to open and discloses far less. Its 2025 FDD estimates $100,000 to $300,000 for a standard store with a $30,000 fee, and it makes no Item 19 earnings claim, so you cannot compare sales.
Not by default, according to Playa Bowls' Item 1, unless your shop sits in a seasonal market. Seasonal shops exist in the system, though, and the FDD reports them separately from the 223 traditional shops in its headline median.
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