Gold’s Gym wants to turn one Southern California gym into more than a dozen.
The Venice-born fitness brand has signed a franchise agreement with Valencia-based Roknipour Investment Group to open 15 gyms across Los Angeles and Orange counties over the next seven years. The deal comes about a year after its longtime local franchisee sold out, which left the company-owned Venice flagship as the brand’s only gym in
the region.
Eight of the new locations are planned for Los Angeles County and seven for Orange County, with the first expected to open within about 12 months. Specific sites have not been announced.
The expansion marks a rebuilding effort for Dallas-based Gold’s Gym in its home market. The previous franchise group held the Southern California rights for about 36 years before exiting in the fall of 2025, taking its gyms with it. Today the brand has nine gyms statewide.
“Unfortunately, we lost all those legacy locations, and we viewed that as a must-have opportunity to get back into the L.A. market,” Gold’s Gym Chief Executive Brad Reynolds said in an interview with the Business Journal. “This is the home of Gold’s Gym.”
Matt Roknipour, who co-founded his development firm with brother Tyler Roknipour, echoed that sentiment.
Gold’s Gym was “always a piece of the history of L.A.,” Matt Roknipour, who also serves as chief executive, said in the interview. “We saw Gold’s exiting in SoCal, we were like, ‘Hold on, this looks like an opportunity for us.’”
‘Biggest fitness market’
Reynolds, who dubbed Southern California “the biggest fitness market in the world,” said the company began looking for a new operator immediately after the previous franchisee’s exit. The deal lets the brand rebuild locally around what he called “a refreshed perspective on the strength and performance platform that we’re building in our gyms.”
The deal also comes six years after Gold’s Gym filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2020 and was sold that August to Germany-based RSG Group for about $100 million. The franchise now has more than 500 locations worldwide.
The company “has moved on from the issues of the COVID era and is a much healthier, cleaner portfolio,” Reynolds said, adding that most of its future growth will come
from franchising.
“I just wish we could go faster,” he said. “To be honest, that’s the only problem.”
West Los Angeles is among the areas the partners are targeting, Reynolds said, calling the deal “the first step on a continued expansion in Southern California.”
Moving into fitness
As a multi-unit franchise operator and commercial real estate developer, Roknipour Investments’ portfolio includes 24 Jiffy Lube and two Jersey Mike’s locations – and it has two Jersey Mike’s in development. The firm also has ground-up construction and “tenant improvement” projects spanning an array of industries including automotive, restaurants, self-storage and express car wash shops.
Matt Roknipour said they had been looking at several fitness brands for its next venture when the Gold’s opening came up. And he noted to the resilience of gym memberships as part of the draw.
“In an economic downturn of any type, it’s one of the last things people want to cancel is a gym membership,” he said.
The new gyms will be smaller than the Venice flagship, which is about 40,000 square feet plus outdoor space. Roknipour said the group is targeting 25,000 to 30,000 square feet per location, with “more of a premium feel” than the Gold’s gyms of the past.
The floor plan will lean away from group fitness classes and toward weight-training equipment, Reynolds said.
“Basically, what we’re focusing on is indexing the physical gym more towards strength and performance, so less sort of group classes, group training, and more performance area,” he said.
Also on-site selection, Roknipour said he wants locations with visibility and within a five- to 10-minute drive for its members. He also noted that Los Angeles real estate will require flexibility.
“I know the market well enough to know that we’re not going to be able to be that particular and say, oh, we only want standalone business,” he said. “I want to be able to get these things open in the next few years.”
