Yoga Works

YogaWorks is a U.S. yoga and wellness brand that now operates as a digital-only platform. The company offers live and on-demand yoga classes, teacher training programs, and related wellness content through its website, mobile app, and select streaming partners. As of February 2024 it no longer runs any physical studios and instead focuses on online memberships, virtual training, and distribution of branded content.

The brand was founded in 1987, when teachers Maty Ezraty, Chuck Miller, and Alan Finger opened the first YogaWorks studio in Santa Monica, California. That original location became known for a structured, alignment-driven approach and helped establish YogaWorks as an early leader in modern studio yoga in the United States. Over the following decades, the company added locations across Los Angeles and New York and built a strong reputation for teacher training, attracting a roster of well-known instructors and serious students.

A notable milestone came in 2007, when Highland Capital Management acquired YogaWorks and supported a more formal expansion strategy into additional urban, lifestyle-oriented markets. The brand entered a faster growth phase after private equity firm Great Hill Partners took ownership and guided the company through an initial public offering on NASDAQ in 2017 under the ticker YOGA. At its peak around 2018 to 2019, YogaWorks operated roughly 60 to 66 company-owned studios across major coastal markets including Los Angeles, Orange County, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, New York, and the Washington, D.C. region. This made it one of the larger multi-unit yoga operators in the country, with a mix of urban in-line storefronts and neighborhood centers that were familiar to shopping center owners and brokers.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted that brick-and-mortar portfolio. YogaWorks, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2020, closed all remaining studios, and marketed its digital and intellectual property assets for sale. GoDigital Media Group, through an affiliated entity now known as YogaWorks Digital, LLC, acquired the brand and online business, while the former public company remained in bankruptcy as a shell. With that transition, all real estate activity, including site selection and lease negotiations, effectively ended. The current team is lean and focused on content and technology rather than operating a national studio network.

Over the last five years, YogaWorks has shifted from a coastal studio chain to a streaming and education platform that delivers yoga and wellness programming into homes and partner channels. The post-2020 entity emphasizes digital content, remote teacher training, and brand licensing opportunities instead of signing new leases. As of February 2024 there have been no formal announcements of a renewed studio rollout or active site search, and the brand is not pursuing programmatic expansion of physical locations. For owners and developers, YogaWorks is best understood as a well-known legacy studio tenant whose real estate footprint has been fully unwound, though the intellectual property could support selective physical concepts in the future if the current owner chose to revisit brick-and-mortar.