This is 16 Handles.
It's a self-serve frozen yogurt company with 16 rotating flavors and over 50 toppings.
Most of its 40 locations are on the East Coast.
This was $10.75 and well worth it.
$9.
$12 or some change.
The business was founded in 2008 by Solomon Choi, but in 2022, Neil Hirschman took over as CEO.
Turning around a brand that everybody thought was done growing is the kind of challenge I thrive on.
I knew through my personal experiences, we could revive this category and grow frozen yogurt into something it never even has been in the US.
And so I knew I had to have the brand so that I could prove out this model and turn 16 Handles into a national household name.
When Neil was 23 years old, he left his career in finance in pursuit of a job that was more hands-on.
Since he was a regular 16 Handles customer, he decided to become a franchisee.
And when I sat down with their CEO and their CFO at the time, I realized that they had sort of gone a little bit stale with the brand in a way that their customers could sort of feel.
That was very exciting to me because it showed that with new energy and new ideas, there was room to push the needle and innovate a little bit.
Neil bought his first 16 Handles franchise in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City for about 555000 when he was 23 years old.
When he took over as CEO of the brand in 2022, the demand for frozen yogurt was declining each year.
I think initially the decline in frozen yogurt was just about the diversity of options that consumers had in the marketplace.
Now you see a consumer that is once again healthier options, and frozen yogurt is starting to grow in relevance again.
Here's how Neil Hirschman turned a stale frozen yogurt business into a company that brings in about 21 million a year.
Neil acquired his first 16 handles franchise when he was 23 years old in April 2019.
There was, you know, simple things like the bathroom wasn't working right and the machines weren't, all you know, maintained to the best that they could be with new park kits.
And it was just like looking at things with a fresh set of eyes that really helped change the needle.
And it did make the store much more profitable and even increased revenue throughout that first year.
I acquired the Murray Hill store with three sources of funding.
I used an SBA loan from the government, a seller's note from the seller, as well as personal savings I had saved up from my time in finance.
I was able to take about 160000, which effectively was all the cash I had saved up at that point, and put it into this investment for the 16 handles of Murray Hill.
The first thing i did was speak to all the employees about what worked well, what didn't work well, and then the second thing is i met all the customers.
I worked the register for full shifts days in and days out, and and watch what people were getting, watch what people were saying, ask them about their experience, and through that i learned the business from the inside.
And after three months of working every shift open to close, i felt really good about the brand and my ability to re-modernize the stores, re-energize the staff, And so, about four months later, I acquired two additional stores in Chelsea and the East Village, before then beginning to build additional stores throughout Manhattan.
By early 2022, Neil decided to put in an offer to purchase 16 Handles.
And in August 2022, he took over as CEO.
Neil says he is the majority owner of 16 Handles.
YouTube comedian Danny Duncan also owns a stake in the company, along with several other minority investors.
The hardest part of acquiring 16 Handles was getting the financing to actually fund the transaction.
I went traditional routes and non-traditional routes and almost gave up a few times because even through SBA it was just very difficult to get banks coming out of COVID to look at a new business and an asset purchase like this and value it favorably.
When we closed on the transaction to buy 16 Handles, I was the largest franchisee, at 27 years old, and I owned six locations around New York City.
I decided to do something that was a little bit controversial and different than other brands, where I didn't absorb the stores that I personally owned into the franchise to become corporate stores.
I decided to remain a franchisee of 16 Handles because I want our future franchisees and our existing ones to know that I'm in it just like them.
Neal still owns and operates six 16 Handle stores across New York City.
Frozen yogurt exploded in popularity in the early 2000s, but fell out of favor over the last several years.
However, that's begun to change.
In fact, in the year ending July of 2025, total frozen yogurt servings are up 10% year over year.
10% is a big deal in context of an overall flat to slightly declining food service market.
If we were to sort of zero in on just the last three months ending July.
Servings are up 32 year over year.
So there's clearly a resurgence happening.
Neil believed in the potential of a resurgence when he purchased 16 Handles.
This may be controversial, but when I bought Sixteen Handles, everyone told me that frozen yogurt was a dead sector, that we had seen the rise and it was the fall.
And I completely disagreed.
I know that with the right energy, with the right product mix and the right innovation, this sector is prime for growth, and that's what we've shown.
Our system wide sales in 2024 were $20.6 million.
Our system wide sales for the first half of 2025 were $12.5 million.
Our projected 2025 system wide sales are $28 million.
When I first took over 16 Handles, the franchise was profitable, but stale.
Their revenue had effectively flattened.
Since then we've greatly improved the revenues across the system at our same stores as well as brought in additional revenue streams both through new stores and through new products in our store, like the edible cookie dough.
Neil says that the retail cookie dough pints added about 200000 to 16 Handles' system-wide revenue in the past 12 months.
The pandemic further impacted restaurant frozen yogurt consumption.
One of the things the pandemic did is it made the American consumer a little bit more indulgent in their behaviors.
And so when we did look for sweet treats, for example, we went towards some of those more really sugary baked goods or dirty sodas.
Now that we're several years removed from that and the public narrative has once again shifted to health and wellness and weight loss and the purity of foods and beverages, we're beginning to focus once again on functional foods.
I guess at some point I feel like it's a little more healthier than having ice cream.
As we get older, you need to eat healthier.
I like it more than ice cream.
Yeah, definitely.
Many consumers believe that frozen yogurt is a healthy alternative to ice cream, but the reality is complicated.
Frozen yogurt is a great treat.
I think that in some cases there might be some protein in frozen yogurt, whereas ice cream there might not be as much.
But frozen yogurt still has a considerable amount of sugar, so you have to be careful about how much sugar might be in various frozen yogurt options.
The serving size for 16 handles frozen yogurt is two thirds of a cup, which is around 20 grams of sugar and 140 calories.
Well, if you look at a soda like a Coca-Cola, that also in one cup of Coca-Cola, that also has about 20 grams of sugar.
So just like I would tell a patient of mine not to have soda multiple times in a week, I tell them not to have frozen yogurt multiple times in a week.
At 16 Handles, you fill up a cup with frozen yogurt and toppings and pay per ounce.
This was $10.
This was $10.75 and well worth it.
Just $8, which is pretty good.
I think $9.
$12 and some change.
It's like $10 or $11.
I mean, I got a lot, so it was kind of expensive.
Yeah, I got a lot, so I think it was a good price for what I got.
Some of our customers come in and might only get 1 of Froyo, but our average transaction is probably closer to 10 per cup.
Generally, our competitors are everyone in the frozen dessert space.
However, we also see ourselves as a compliment because a lot of the brands out there are going for that novelty, that once a week or once a month type product, whereas we want those loyal customers who are coming either as a meal replacement or to finish off their meal three or four times a week.
Despite the resurgence of frozen yogurt, there are potential hurdles ahead for 16 Handles.
The food service consumer in general is still facing about a five year cumulative inflation of about 34 percent.
We're still dealing with some economic uncertainty that makes people cautious in their spending overall.
Neal said that 16 Handles does not require specific prices at the franchisor level, but some of its franchisees have chosen to increase prices 5 to 8 since 2022.
16 Handles can differentiate from its competitors by offering non-traditional frozen yogurt flavors.
One of my main focuses is innovating on product to get customers really excited.
So last year we did things like French fry, frozen yogurt, butterbeer frozen yogurt, black matcha flavor, in honor of the Squid Game series.
We've seen demand surging over the past two years for 16 endles with same store sale increases above 10 for the last two and a half years now.
And we really think that it's thanks to our product innovation, the new markets we're opening, choosing great locations and great operators.
I think we're in the early stages of this rebound within frozen yogurt.
The consumer is willing to look for.
Frozen reward, that affordable indulgence that, despite all the other consumer uncertainty, just makes us feel a little bit better about our day.
Neil estimates that 16 handles will grow to about 100 stores within the next two years and 200 stores within the next four years.
I don't think other brands are able to keep up both with the value we could bring to the table as a large franchise brand and also just the experience and the keen attention to customer focus that even I take, and currently owning six locations.
So we're able to provide that.
And since we're a small team and our franchisor, we roll out changes really quickly.
And so we think, because of the variety of products we offer and the additional grab and go products we sell, We can bring in more guests than any other brand and then earn their loyalty.
My career in finance really taught me how to model risk.
And in frozen yogurt, now I manage cookie dough inventory.
Both are very volatile markets, but one is a lot more fun.
And I think diving into your passion and focusing on something that makes you happy is so much more valuable and important.
And that's why I really love this career and plan to stay on as CEO for a long time.
