Evans / Lyons Restores

When disaster strikes a home or business, the clock starts immediately. Water from a burst pipe causes secondary damage within 24 to 48 hours. Smoke residue from a fire begins permanently bonding to surfaces within hours of extinguishing. Mold colonies can establish themselves in as little as 72 hours after a flood event. The property restoration industry exists precisely because these emergencies demand professional intervention, and the contents inside a home — clothing, electronics, artwork, rugs, furniture, and soft goods — require specialized expertise that general contractors simply cannot provide. Evans Lyons Restores franchise was built to solve exactly this problem, operating at the intersection of urgency and expertise to restore personal property for insurance policyholders across the United States. The brand traces its origins to Lyons Textile Restoration, led by CEO Joel Lyons, which began operations in the late 1990s and opened its Memphis flagship location in 2001 with an initial focus on textile restoration and dry cleaning. The transformative moment came on September 1, 2017, when Lyons Cleaners, the Memphis-based parent company, acquired Springfield, Illinois-based Evans Garment Restoration, a company with 40 years of dry cleaning and garment restoration experience and a portfolio of patented restoration processes. Evans Garment Restoration was reincorporated in Tennessee on October 19, 2017, and the combined entity began operating under the unified Evans Lyons Restores brand, headquartered at 1750 Transport Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38116. Today the system operates 15 total locations — 10 franchised units and 5 company-owned units — across an expanding national footprint that includes territories near major metropolitan markets such as Boston, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. The brand began franchising in 2014, and with the global restoration market valued at $210 billion in 2025, the Evans Lyons Restores franchise opportunity enters the analysis as a strategically timed, niche-focused, insurance-integrated restoration concept operating in one of the most structurally resilient service categories in the entire franchise marketplace.

The property damage restoration industry is one of the most durable categories in franchising because its demand is not discretionary — when a house floods, the homeowner does not choose whether to remediate, they choose who will do it. U.S. damage restoration services generated $7.1 billion in revenue in 2024, supported by a 4.5% compound annual growth rate sustained over the prior five years. At the global level, the restoration market reached $210 billion in 2025 and is projected to expand at a 6.8% CAGR over the coming years, driven by three compounding macro forces: climate change, aging infrastructure, and deepening insurance industry integration. Increased frequency of hurricanes, wildfires, flooding events, and extreme weather patterns creates a consistent, non-cyclical demand base that most franchise categories cannot claim. Aging residential and commercial building stock across the United States — much of it built before modern moisture barriers, fire-retardant materials, and electrical codes — generates persistent mold, water infiltration, and fire risk that requires professional remediation. Perhaps most importantly for investors evaluating the Evans Lyons Restores franchise, the insurance industry integration dynamic fundamentally transforms the revenue model: restoration franchises operating as preferred insurance providers receive referral pipelines directly from adjusters and carriers, converting what might otherwise be an unpredictable consumer-facing business into a recurring, relationship-driven revenue stream. The broader franchise market itself is accelerating, with projected growth of $565.5 billion at a 10% CAGR from 2025 to 2030, and North America accounting for 38.9% of that expansion. The business format franchise segment alone was valued at $281.4 billion in 2024. Within this macro context, contents restoration — the specific niche Evans Lyons Restores occupies — remains a relatively fragmented sub-sector, meaning early-mover franchisees in defined territories face less direct branded competition than they would in more saturated categories like fast food or fitness.

The Evans Lyons Restores franchise cost structure requires careful analysis for any serious investor. The initial franchise fee is $40,000, which positions this opportunity within the mid-range of the service franchise category and is consistent with the $40,000 fee structure seen across comparable specialty service brands. Total investment to open an Evans Lyons Restores franchised facility ranges from $123,900 to $333,700, a spread that reflects meaningful variability based on territory size, whether the franchisee leases or acquires their facility, and local market labor and real estate conditions. Breaking down the investment components illuminates where capital is deployed: leasehold improvements account for $0 to $40,000, operational equipment represents a significant $40,000 to $80,000 tranche, approved vehicles and vehicle wraps require $10,000 to $40,000, and computer hardware demands $6,900 to $12,500. Softer costs include training expenses of $1,000 to $3,000, initial inventory of $3,000 to $5,000, insurance of $1,500 to $4,000, business licenses and permits of $300 to $1,400, professional fees of $500 to $5,000, required software of $200 to $800, and signage of $500 to $2,000. Critically, the working capital reserve — budgeted as additional funds for the first three months of operation — ranges from $20,000 to $100,000, which represents the single widest variance in the entire cost table and signals that franchise investors must plan conservatively for a business development ramp-up period before insurance referral volume reaches sustainable levels. On an ongoing basis, franchisees pay a royalty fee of 6% of gross revenue monthly, plus a 2% marketing fee directed toward national and regional advertising, producing a combined ongoing fee obligation of 8% of gross revenue. This 8% combined rate is consistent with industry norms for service-based restoration franchises. The parent company, Lyons Cleaners of Memphis, provides the corporate infrastructure backing the franchise system, and franchisees are advised to consult the full Franchise Disclosure Document to understand all obligations before committing capital.

The Evans Lyons Restores operating model is built around a discipline called The 5 R's of Restoration: React, Respond, Resolve, Renew, and Review. The operational cadence begins with reacting within 15 minutes of initial customer contact, followed by dispatching fueled and stocked fleet vehicles so teams can respond immediately, with on-site arrival targeted within 2 to 4 hours of the initial call. The resolve phase encompasses the physical pack-out of damaged contents, which then enter the specialized cleaning and restoration workflow that incorporates Evans Garment Restoration's patented garment and soft goods restoration processes along with Lyons' ISO 9001:2015 quality management system — the same quality framework used by global manufacturing and service organizations to ensure measurable, repeatable outcomes. The brand's stated restoration success rate of 96% of items touched is central to its value proposition both to insurance adjusters (who benefit from reduced total claim costs when contents are restored rather than replaced) and to policyholders (who recover personal items with sentimental value that replacement dollars cannot replicate). The scope of restorable items extends well beyond textiles to include electronics, art, rugs, and general contents, making the Evans Lyons Restores franchise a comprehensive contents restoration solution rather than a narrow specialty. From a staffing perspective, the business model positions the franchisee as a team leader and relationship manager rather than a daily technician, requiring trained restoration technicians for pack-outs and cleaning, administrative staff for claim documentation, and sales personnel to manage ongoing relationships with insurance adjusters. Corporate support encompasses continuous sales assistance, marketing programs, and the ability to access program business — the preferred provider referral pipelines that the franchise system has established with insurance carriers. The geographic service zone provided by Lyons Cleaners covers a rapidly expanding national footprint, with specific territories encompassing regions surrounding major cities across states including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, and others, though franchisees should confirm exclusivity parameters directly within the FDD.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document for Evans Lyons Restores. This is a factual reality that investors must weigh carefully, as the absence of Item 19 disclosure means prospective franchisees cannot access franchisor-published average revenue per unit, median revenue, or profit margin data directly from the FDD. Franchisors are not legally required to include Item 19, but the decision not to disclose it shifts the due diligence burden more heavily onto the investor. In the absence of disclosed unit-level financial performance data, investors should evaluate the opportunity using industry-level benchmarks alongside the structural economics of the business model. The U.S. damage restoration services market generated $7.1 billion across a fragmented competitor landscape in 2024, implying meaningful revenue potential per operator in well-positioned territories. The insurance referral model — when program business relationships are fully activated — creates a structural advantage that reduces customer acquisition costs compared to consumer-facing businesses reliant on advertising alone. Juan Gaona, owner of Lyons Restores by Quality Care in New Jersey and a franchisee since 2022 with 20 years of prior restoration industry experience, has publicly attributed significant business growth to the program business referral network and the corporate team's continuous sales and marketing support. The investment range of $123,900 to $333,700 establishes the capital at risk, and prospective franchisees should model conservative payback scenarios given the absence of disclosed revenue benchmarks. Reaching out to existing franchisees through the Item 20 contact list in the FDD, and ideally engaging an independent franchise attorney and accountant to model unit economics against the total investment range, is essential before committing to any Evans Lyons Restores franchise investment. The combination of a recession-resistant category, insurance industry integration, and a 6.8% CAGR global market growth rate provides a favorable structural backdrop even where specific unit financial disclosures are unavailable.

The growth trajectory of the Evans Lyons Restores franchise system reflects a brand that is deliberately building national infrastructure before aggressive unit expansion. Starting from Lyons Textile Restoration's initial 10-state service territory, the acquisition of Evans Garment Restoration on September 1, 2017 was the defining accelerant, instantly adding territories in the Southeast, Texas, Oklahoma, a large contiguous block of Midwestern and Northern states, and multiple Mid-Atlantic states. CEO Joel Lyons articulated a two-to-three-year national expansion target and a five-year global expansion target in 2017, providing a documented strategic roadmap that investors can evaluate against the current 15-unit system count. The company's competitive moat is anchored in intellectual property: the patented garment restoration processes acquired from Evans Garment Restoration represent one of the only patented systems of this kind in the entire contents restoration industry, creating a defensible technical differentiation that competitors cannot easily replicate. The integration of Evans' 40 years of dry cleaning expertise with Lyons' ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management system creates an operational playbook that is both scalable and auditable — critical for winning and retaining insurance carrier preferred provider status, which demands documented quality standards and consistent outcomes. The expansion of service categories beyond textiles to include electronics, art, rugs, soft goods, and general contents restoration dramatically increases the addressable revenue per claim event, as a single house fire generates contents across all of these categories simultaneously. The brand's fleet-based, rapid-response operational model also aligns with the technological modernization trend reshaping the broader restoration industry, where capabilities including thermal imaging, advanced moisture detection, and mobile documentation tools are becoming table stakes for carrier-approved contractors. With the global restoration market growing at 6.8% annually and North America representing 38.9% of projected franchise market growth through 2030, the Evans Lyons Restores franchise system is positioned within a category that structurally rewards operators who establish carrier relationships and territory dominance early.

The ideal Evans Lyons Restores franchise candidate is not a passive investor seeking an absentee ownership model. Franchisee Juan Gaona's experience underscores that the business rewards professionals who bring prior industry relationships, a willingness to learn proprietary restoration systems, and a collaborative mindset that strengthens the collective network rather than operating in isolation. Prior experience in the insurance industry, property restoration, dry cleaning, or contents management is a meaningful asset, though the franchise system's training infrastructure — built around Evans' patented processes and Lyons' ISO quality framework — is designed to develop highly advanced textile and contents restorers even from adjacent skill sets. Given the 2 to 4 hour on-site response commitment and the insurance adjuster relationship management requirements, this is an owner-operator oriented model where the franchisee's direct engagement in business development is directly correlated with the program business volume they can cultivate. The franchise began operations in 2014 and expanded significantly following the September 2017 Evans acquisition, suggesting that the most strategically valuable territories near major metropolitan markets — Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, Kansas City, and Detroit — are available on a first-come, competitive basis. Multi-unit development is a logical growth pathway given the territorial structure, as operators who establish carrier relationships in one market can leverage those institutional credibility signals when expanding into adjacent territories. Prospective franchisees should review the franchise agreement term length and renewal conditions directly within the Franchise Disclosure Document and consult independent legal counsel before executing any agreement, as transfer and resale provisions significantly affect the long-term investment value of any franchise unit.

For investors conducting serious due diligence on the Evans Lyons Restores franchise opportunity, the investment thesis rests on four compounding factors: a $210 billion global restoration market growing at 6.8% annually, a patented and ISO-certified operational system that creates genuine technical differentiation in a fragmented industry, an insurance-integrated revenue model that replaces unpredictable consumer advertising with recurring carrier referral pipelines, and a relatively early-stage national franchise system with 15 units where territory availability is broader than it will be once the brand achieves its stated two-to-three-year national expansion objective. The total investment range of $123,900 to $333,700, a $40,000 franchise fee, and an 8% combined royalty and marketing obligation must be evaluated against these structural tailwinds and the absence of Item 19 financial performance disclosure, which places additional weight on franchisee validation calls and independent financial modeling. The recession-resistant nature of the category — restoration is non-optional when disaster occurs — provides a meaningful degree of demand stability that most franchise categories cannot credibly claim. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to benchmark the Evans Lyons Restores franchise investment against competing restoration and service franchise opportunities with precision and independence. Every major financial commitment of this scale deserves analysis that goes beyond the franchisor's own materials, and independent data is the single most important input in any franchise investment decision. Explore the complete Evans Lyons Restores franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.