Hurts Donut owners sell Sno Biz franchise

A Sno Biz shaved ice franchise started in Springfield by one family has been sold to another.

Kyler Peace and his sister Carrington Peace purchased the local franchise from Tim and Kas Clegg, the husband-and-wife team that founded Hurts Donut Co. in 2013. The Springfield-based doughnut chain topped Springfield Business Journal’s Dynamic Dozen list in 2018, posting revenue in excess of $20 million.

Tim Clegg said he sold the Springfield franchise July 11 to the Peaces, who are operating the franchise through KC’s Shaved Ice LLC. Clegg’s father, also named Tim, started operating the local Sno Biz in 2003.

Kyler Peace said he and his sister bought the business for $125,000, which includes five trailers and the Cleggs’ inventory of shaved ice flavors. Clegg said Sno Biz was operating at 1707 W. Battlefield Road across from Hy-Vee – a location Peace said is set to reopen for business today. He said a second Sno Biz in Springfield is slated to open either late this week or early next week in front of the Price Cutter at 3260 E. Battlefield Road.

The Peaces are no strangers to Sno Biz, as the family has operated a trailer outside Bennett Springs State Park in Lebanon for three years. Kyler Peace said they also had a spot in the Lake of the Ozarks area last year but did not reopen it this year.

“We’ve had an eye for expanding after our first year. We were looking for a bigger market and had conversations with Tim in the past,” Peace said, noting the deal came together over a couple of weeks.

Clegg said he and his wife never advertised they were selling the business and had made contact with the Peaces a couple of years ago to start exploring the possibility.

“We feel extremely comfortable with them,” Clegg said. “It doesn’t make it any easier to let it go. But we feel like it’s going into the right hands.”

Noting he took over the business after his dad died in 2011, Clegg said he has an emotional attachment to the local Sno Biz that made it difficult to sell. But the need to focus more on the ever-growing Hurts Donut Co., currently at 21 stores in 11 states, made him realize it was time.

“It was my dad’s business and that’s why it’s been a difficult couple of days,” Clegg said. “We held on to it longer than we should have, in all honesty, because we’re so busy and we’re spread so thin.”

The siblings graduated college in May – Kyler from Missouri State University with a bachelor’s in finance and Carrington from Southwest Baptist University with a bachelor’s in history and political science. They’re interested in expanding their operations beyond Lebanon and Springfield.

“We would like this not to be the final stopping point,” Kyler Peace said, noting Branson as a possible future site. “We would like to spread out even more.”

Burnsville, Minnesota-based Sno Biz is an international franchisor with more than 2,000 dealers in over 20 countries, according to its website.