The sudden shutdown has also left members scrambling for answers, particularly customers who made substantial advance payments.
"What happens to all of us who were encouraged to pay a year up front?" one person said after the closure announcement.
For now, there is no clear answer. The lengthy message sent to members Monday morning did not explain whether customers with prepaid annual memberships will receive refunds, credits at other F45 locations or another form of reimbursement. Because individual F45 studios are generally franchised businesses, responsibility for outstanding Pacific Beach memberships may depend on the agreements between the local franchisee, its members and F45's corporate organization.
In an unusually detailed email sent to members on Monday, August 24, owners Andrew "Andy" Thomas and Nicole Thomas announced that F45 Training Pacific Beach had closed effective immediately while laying out a years-long dispute surrounding STTP LLC, the company that operated the franchise at 1225 Garnet Avenue. The accusations are serious, and several have not been proven in court. The Thomas family specifically characterized portions of its account as allegations, and SanDiegoVille is doing the same.
However, documents reviewed by SanDiegoVille and linked to in the owners' message independently corroborate significant portions of the underlying timeline, including a 2022 ownership change, a subsequently filed lien against STTP LLC's assets and former operator Evan Tyrrell's later Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, which identifies STTP as also responsible for a JPMorgan Chase obligation. The result is an unusually messy ending for a gym that the owners say was once the highest-grossing F45 studio in the United States.
F45 Pacific Beach opened during perhaps the worst possible moment to launch a fitness business: September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unable to operate normally indoors, the group initially built its community in the parking lot behind the Garnet Avenue studio.
Equipment was stored in a shipping container and brought outside for classes, with turf, fencing, mats and weights assembled around the lot. The owners say the operation reached its 420-member capacity within approximately three months and became F45's highest-grossing U.S. location during that period.
"That happened because a community decided to show up in a car park in a pandemic," the owners wrote, recalling members exercising outdoors through winter and even wearing gloves to handle cold dumbbells.
Behind that success, however, the ownership structure was changing. According to the account sent to members, the original investment group included the Thomases as non-operating partners, while Tyrrell held a larger ownership interest and was involved with the business locally. The Thomas family says it bought out Tyrrell's remaining interest in early 2022.
Franchise documents reviewed by SanDiegoVille confirm that a formal ownership change occurred. A February 2022 amendment removed Tyrrell as an owner and guarantor and identified Andrew Thomas as owning 95% of the company operating F45 Pacific Beach, with Evan Hajj owning the remaining 5%.
What allegedly happened afterward is at the heart of the dispute. The Thomas family claims Tyrrell continued to have access to company banking and financial information after selling his ownership interest and continued conducting business in STTP LLC's name without their knowledge or authorization.
Among the most consequential allegations involves a JPMorgan Chase business line of credit. The owners allege that a $180,000 credit line was opened in STTP LLC's name after the ownership transfer and that $100,000 was subsequently withdrawn.
SanDiegoVille has not independently established who applied for or authorized that line of credit, and the documents reviewed do not prove the Thomas family's allegations about how the debt originated.
What the records do show is that by November 2022, JPMorgan Chase had filed a lien against essentially all of STTP LLC's assets, including its equipment, inventory, accounts and other property. That became a major problem when the owners later tried to sell the gym.
Documents provided to SanDiegoVille include December 2025 correspondence from a business adviser preparing the studio for sale. After searching the company and its liens, the adviser informed the owners that an active lien existed against STTP LLC and would have to be "satisfied or taken care of" before an escrow company would permit the business to be transferred to a buyer.
The Thomas family says it repeatedly attempted to sell the operating studio but could not complete a transaction because prospective purchasers discovered the lien and other credit issues while investigating the business.
"The studio was not failing," the owners wrote. "But the lien, credit issues and other matters described above materially impaired our ability to transfer or sell the business."
Put more simply, the owners say they had a gym people still wanted to attend and that others were interested in buying, but the company operating it had become burdened by debts and financial problems they say they did not create.
The situation became even messier in 2023. The Thomas family alleges that California corporate records for STTP LLC were changed without their authorization, including the company's agent for service of process. They further allege that Tyrrell continued conducting activity in the company's name and that additional credit accounts were opened without their approval. Those claims remain allegations and have not been adjudicated. The existence of a credit account alone does not establish who authorized it, who benefited from it or whether it was improperly obtained.
But another public record provides important context. On August 31, 2025, Tyrrell filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in federal court. His bankruptcy schedules reported $77,439 in assets against $750,280 in liabilities, including more than $700,000 in unsecured claims.
Among those obligations was a JPMorgan Chase business line of credit with a reported balance of $48,727, which Tyrrell's bankruptcy paperwork states was incurred between 2022 and 2024.
More significantly for F45 Pacific Beach, the bankruptcy documents identify STTP LLC as also responsible for a JPMorgan Chase obligation and separately reference "STTP LLC - F45 Pacific Beach" as one of Tyrrell's former business interests.
That does not prove the Thomas family's allegations about who created or authorized the debt. It does, however, confirm that the company operating F45 Pacific Beach became tied to debt appearing in Tyrrell's bankruptcy.
Correspondence from F45's own legal department provides another piece of the ownership puzzle. In January 2026, while responding to the Pacific Beach franchise regarding renewal, F45 Legal stated that its records showed the studio's two owners under the 2022 amendment were Andrew Thomas and Evan Hajj.
By late 2025 and into 2026, the Thomas family says it had reached an impasse. They could continue putting their own money into keeping the gym operating, but doing so wouldn't eliminate the lien, repair the company's credit or make the business easier to sell.
"Personal capital doesn't remove a lien," the family wrote. "It doesn't withdraw a co-debtor designation from someone else's bankruptcy filing. It doesn't repair a destroyed business credit profile."
Then came what the owners called the "final theft." According to Monday's closure announcement, sometime between the completion of Saturday morning's classes and approximately midday Sunday, someone entered the Pacific Beach studio and removed its workout equipment, including weights, cardio machines and an InBody body-composition scanner. The owners characterized the incident as a burglary and said they awoke to discover the equipment gone.
"Today we woke up to our entire studio's workout equipment, weights, cardio machines & InBody scanner technology stolen & no longer inside the F45 Training Pacific Beach studio," the owners wrote.
SanDiegoVille has not independently confirmed a police report, determined the circumstances under which the equipment was removed or identified who was responsible.
Importantly, there is currently no evidence reviewed by SanDiegoVille connecting Tyrrell or any other specific person to the reported disappearance of the equipment. That incident should be treated separately from the financial allegations surrounding the company.
Whatever happened to the equipment, the shutdown was immediate. That leaves employees suddenly without jobs and members wondering not only where they will exercise next, but whether money they paid in advance is gone with the gym.
Annual memberships can represent hundreds or even thousands of dollars paid months in advance. Members who purchased packages, prepaid contracts or annual plans are now awaiting clarification about whether the local franchisee will refund those balances or whether F45 corporate or neighboring franchise locations will offer some accommodation.
The owners' announcement did not address what would happen to prepaid memberships. It did, however, repeatedly emphasize that coaches, front-desk workers and other studio employees were not responsible for the events leading to the closure.
"Every person who coached your sessions, ran your front desk and managed this studio is losing their job today," the owners wrote. "They had no involvement in and no knowledge of any of what's described above."
The suddenness of the closure makes the situation particularly striking. Members were still regularly attending a studio that had cultivated one of Pacific Beach's more recognizable fitness communities before waking Monday to an email announcing it was over.
This was not, at least according to its current ownership, the typical slow death of a struggling gym. They say F45 Pacific Beach still had customers, equipment, franchise rights and a business they believed someone else would have purchased. What ultimately killed it, in their account, was an increasingly tangled financial situation they say they inherited without understanding its full extent and ultimately could not escape.
Those claims warrant further scrutiny, particularly given the seriousness of the allegations directed toward a former owner. The lien, franchise documents, bankruptcy schedules and other records independently substantiate several important parts of the timeline, but they do not establish every accusation made in Monday's message. SanDiegoVille is seeking additional information regarding the allegations, the reported removal of the studio's equipment and the status of prepaid memberships.
For now, the end is considerably less complicated than everything that preceded it. A gym that started with San Diegans lifting weights in a parking lot during a global pandemic, reportedly grew into the highest-grossing F45 location in America and built a community hundreds of members strong is suddenly empty.
"We could have sent you three sentences about a difficult decision," the Thomas family wrote. "We think you'd have known it was hollow."
For members who paid a year in advance, however, another difficult question now hangs over the locked doors: What happens to their money?
F45 Training Pacific Beach was located at 1225 Garnet Avenue in San Diego's Pacific Beach neighborhood.
Originally published on August 24, 2026.
"We could have sent you three sentences about a difficult decision," the Thomas family wrote. "We think you'd have known it was hollow."
For members who paid a year in advance, however, another difficult question now hangs over the locked doors: What happens to their money?
F45 Training Pacific Beach was located at 1225 Garnet Avenue in San Diego's Pacific Beach neighborhood.
Originally published on August 24, 2026.