Update · September 15, 2026

BAM hid its franchisees’ testimonials from the public. The six owners it chose are the biggest store in the chain, its most loyal vendor, its own Store Spotlight, a page it runs itself, and a couple it dropped from its disclosure without a word.

Six owner testimonials sit under “What Our Franchisees Say” on BAM’s franchise-sales site, on the page headed “The Financials” as well. All six are privacy-locked on Vimeo; a prospect who clicks gets an error. This site recovered the six poster frames and ran them against BAM’s own disclosures, its own Facebook page, its own storefront and the local press. Gary and Holly Friedman opened BAM’s first Austin store in 2017, appear in every disclosure through 2025, and are in neither of the 2026 lists, not as an outlet and not as a departure. Phil Vice runs what his store calls the largest Bricks & Minifigs in the country, at about three times the median store in BAM’s own numbers. Carl Powell’s store sells on BAM’s corporate storefront, recites BAM’s rules to customers as “a franchise wide policy,” and runs on a website theme corporate built. Heather Sweat’s store has a Facebook page that BAM Franchising says it is “responsible for.” Nick Gerow is the owner BAM’s own page spotlighted in December. None of the six is among the eight stores BAM cut off from its Slack in August. Chosen by corporate, tied to corporate, and muted by corporate.

CONFIRMEDall six testimonial videos on franchise.bricksandminifigs.com are Vimeo privacy-locked and do not play for a visitor; they sit on the testimonials, why-BAM, financials and Canada pages, two of them on the homepage; BAM uploaded the poster frames in October 2025 as “BAM 2025 Franchisee Video 1” through “6”; the same pages quote two different average revenues, one of them two disclosures oldCONFIRMEDGary and Holly Friedman, BAM’s first Austin franchisees, are in BAM’s 2018 through 2025 disclosures and nowhere in the 2026 one, neither as an outlet nor as a franchisee who left; the 2026 Item 20 table counts one Texas termination in 2025 while the 2026 departures exhibit says “Termination: None,” and the Texas row does not add; BAM’s locator still lists Austin at the same address and phone, in a different suiteCORROBORATEDthe two faces with no name on screen: Nick Gerow of Charlottesville, Virginia, whom BAM’s own Facebook Store Spotlight named and pictured in December, and Heather Sweat of Lexington, Kentucky, named on screen as the store’s owner on WKYT in August 2024UNRESOLVEDwhy BAM locks its own testimonials, whether any prospect has ever been shown them, which Texas outlet the disclosure counts as terminated, and whether any regulator was ever told about Austin

Six videos, zero plays

The testimonials page on BAM’s franchise-sales site is headed “What Our Franchisees Say.” It carries six videos in a carousel. Click any of them and Vimeo answers that the video’s privacy settings do not allow it to be shown. They do not play on the financials page, the why-BAM page, the Canada page or the homepage either; this site checked from a real browser on September 6 and again today. The only thing a prospect can see is the frame Vimeo shows before the error: six people in front of the same hotel-conference-room wall, each with the Bricks & Minifigs logo in the corner. BAM uploaded those frames in October 2025 under the names “BAM 2025 Franchisee Video 1” through “6.” Two of the six were already on the old sales site by January 2025, so the series was shot before that. The old site titled its embeds; the new one does not. Three of the frames carry BAM’s own burned-in names. That left two faces, and BAM’s own records supplied both.

The six frames, as BAM’s sales site serves them

Frames 3, 4 and 6 carry BAM’s own burned-in name supers. Frame 2’s name comes from BAM’s old sales site, which titled the embed. Frames 1 and 5 are matched to BAM’s own December Store Spotlight photos and to a name-supered WKYT segment.

Who BAM chose

Six owners, out of more than 260 open stores, speak for the system. By BAM’s own records they are not a sample. They are the owners corporate is closest to, and the record of each one is public.

• Phil Vice, Springfield, Missouri. Opened in early 2023 with, he told the Springfield Business Journal, $200,000 in, including a $25,000 franchise fee. In December 2024 the store doubled to 6,400 square feet and, in KY3’s words, claimed “the title of largest store in the franchise.” Vice put 2024 revenue at about $1.4 million. He is the face on BAM’s page about money, and his store is the top of BAM’s own distribution, not the middle of it.
• Carl Powell, Huntsville, Alabama. A corporate supporter by every public measure. He is BAM’s on-camera advocate, one of the first two owners it put on its sales site. His store is one of the three franchise stores that sell through BAM’s corporate storefront, the shelf BAM sells to its own franchisees from. His store’s website recites corporate’s buy-counter rule to customers, with an apology, “Sorry, it is a franchise wide policy,” calls itself “one of 225+ Franchise stores,” and runs on the Shopify theme corporate built. On a Huntsville podcast in January 2024 he described looking into a LEGO resale store on his own, “but then I found the franchise,” called it “a real good franchise, very big,” and said its slogan, bringing joy to others through LEGO, “really appealed to me.” Of the six, he is the one whose store speaks for corporate even when the video does not play.
• Nick Gerow, Charlottesville, Virginia. Signed in April 2022, opened in April 2023, and is the franchisee BAM’s corporate Facebook page celebrated in a Store Spotlight in December. His is one of the two videos on the sales site’s homepage.
• Heather Sweat, Lexington, Kentucky. The store’s public face on Lexington television since 2024. Her store’s Facebook page says, in Facebook’s own page-transparency box, “BAM FRANCHISING INC is responsible for this Page.” The page a customer sees as the Lexington store’s is, by Facebook’s accounting, corporate’s.
• Madrigal Vorce Brown, Glen Carbon, Illinois. Joined BAM’s outlet list in the 2023 disclosure and is on it still. Hers is the other video on the homepage.
• Gary and Holly Friedman, Austin, Texas. BAM’s first Austin franchisees, in every disclosure from 2018 through 2025, and the pair BAM has since dropped from its own paperwork. Their story is below.

One more thing the six have in common. On August 26 this site listed the eight stores BAM had cut off from its Slack: Apple Valley and Champlin, Minnesota; Durham and Huntersville, North Carolina; Pearland, Texas; Sarasota, Florida; Williamsburg and Woodbridge, Virginia. None of the six is among them.

The largest store, on the page about money

The six videos also sit on the sales site’s financials page, under the heading “Your LEGO® Resale Franchise Financial Blueprint.” That page tells a prospect, in one paragraph, that franchisees “achieve average annual revenues of $507K,” and, a few paragraphs later, that they “can expect substantial financial returns, with average annual revenues exceeding $579,000.” The testimonials page says “$579K.” The homepage says “$579,852” and a leading franchisee’s “$1,210,402,” with a footnote: from the 2024 disclosure. That is the oldest and highest of the three averages BAM has published. Its 2024 disclosure put the average franchise store at $579,853 for 2023. Its 2025 disclosure put it at $538,226 for 2024. Its 2026 disclosure, the one in force, puts it at $507,684 for 2025, with a median of $467,539 across 153 stores. The average has fallen every year, and the sales site quotes the year it was highest, next to the one it is now, and does not say which is current.

Now put Springfield on that page. Vice’s own figure for 2024, about $1.4 million, is three times the median store in BAM’s current disclosure and well inside its top quartile, whose median is $740,073. The 2025 disclosure’s highest-revenue franchise store made $1,412,455 in 2024; whether that is Springfield, BAM does not say. What the page called The Financials shows a prospect, then, is the owner of the biggest store in the chain, silent, above a number two editions stale. Half of BAM’s full-year stores made less than $467,539 in 2025. The lowest made $188,084. Neither of those owners is in the carousel.

The owner whose store speaks corporate’s lines

Carl Powell is the corporate supporter of the six, and it shows at every layer a customer can see. His store is one of the three franchise stores listed as vendors on BAM’s corporate storefront, the shelf BAM sells to its own franchisees from, reported here on September 2. Its own website tells a customer with LEGO to sell, in corporate’s words, that the store is “not allowed” to buy current sets: “Sorry, it is a franchise wide policy.” Its about page describes itself as “one of 225+ Franchise stores.” And the site itself runs on a Shopify theme whose schema is named “Bam Debut Modified,” the corporate-built theme this site reported on September 2, found on the Huntsville and Metairie stores’ websites and reporting to one analytics property. He has said as much himself. Asked on the Rocket City Cast in January 2024 how the store came about, he said he had looked into doing it on his own, “but then I found the franchise,” called Bricks & Minifigs “a real good franchise, very big,” and said the company’s slogan was one of the things that “really appealed to me.” One of the first two owners BAM put on its sales site is the owner whose store page, storefront listing, website code and own account all say corporate. That is not an accusation. It is what a prospect would find if the video played and they went looking for who was talking.

The pair who left

Gary and Holly Friedman opened BAM’s first Austin store in 2017; Community Impact reported it that July, at 14010 N. US 183, Suite 525. They are in BAM’s 2018 disclosure and every edition after it through 2025, at that address. BAM’s 2021 disclosure even carries them on its own balance sheet, a $2,900 line called “BAM TX - G Friedman Loan.” They are not in the 2026 disclosure’s list of franchised outlets. They are not in its Exhibit G, the list headed “Franchisees who left the system during our last fiscal year,” which names ten departures, none in Austin, and which says under “Termination” one word: “None.” Yet the same document’s Item 20 table for Texas counts one termination in 2025. It does not say whose. The only Texas outlet on the 2025 list that is on neither 2026 list is Austin. And the Texas row does not add: 20 outlets at the start of 2025, nine opened, one terminated, and 29 at the end. Twenty plus nine minus one is 28.

A franchise disclosure document exists so that a prospect can call the people who left. The Friedmans left, and BAM did not put them on the list. Their faces are still on the sales site, under “What Our Franchisees Say,” in a video that will not play. Meanwhile BAM’s locator lists an Austin store at the same address in Suite 445, with the same phone number the Friedmans had, open, hours posted, and that store is not in the 2026 disclosure either. A store on the map that the disclosure does not know, a termination in the table that the exhibit denies, and owners in the marketing that the paperwork no longer admits: that is Austin, read against itself. Two other Texas stores the 2026 exhibit says were transferred to new owners, Plano and Frisco, are missing from the 2026 outlet list as well.

The company that picks who speaks

Put the six beside the rest of the month. The eight owners who joined an independent franchisee association were cut off from BAM’s Slack. The owner who left the system in public was erased from BAM’s map overnight. Two owners who did nothing at all were erased and restored within a day, without a word to either. The six owners BAM asked to speak for the brand are the biggest store in the chain, its storefront vendor, its spotlight subject, an owner whose store page it runs itself, a 2023 arrival, and a pair it has since dropped from its own paperwork. None of the six is on the list of eight. And even those six, having said whatever they said in a hotel conference room, are behind a lock.

The franchisees BAM lets speak are the ones it chose, and it does not let them speak either.

The dates

Later: a member of BAM’s marketing advisory council sells its new franchisees a $995 course on what corporate won’t teach them, and his stores posted the truck and the bird, reported September 17.

Sources. franchise.bricksandminifigs.com: the testimonials, financials, why-BAM, Canada and home pages, captured September 5 and September 15, 2026, and the six poster images served by the site, preserved with hashes. Vimeo player responses for videos 1035760077, 1035761556, 1029038898, 1029038546, 1029295057 and 1035761038, September 5 and 6. BAM’s 2018 through 2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents: Exhibits F and G, Item 19 and Item 20; the 2021 edition’s interim balance sheet; the 2026 edition hosted here. Bricks & Minifigs North America, Store Spotlight: Charlottesville, December 23, 2025. KY3, December 28, 2024; the Springfield Business Journal, March 6, 2023 and January 7, 2025. Community Impact, July 28, 2017. WKYT, Everyday Kentucky, August 5, 2024, and WTVQ, May 3, 2024. The Lexington store’s Facebook page, page-transparency box, September 15, 2026. The Huntsville store’s own website: We Buy LEGO, About Us, and its page code, September 15, 2026. Rocket City Cast, episode 58, January 18, 2024, audio from the show’s feed, transcribed by this site. BAM’s store locator, captured September 14 and 15, 2026. The corporate storefront, reported September 2; the Slack shadowban, reported August 26; the deletions, reported September 13 and 14.

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