Leadership & Infrastructure
Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii promoted Chief Operating Officer Tom Wylie to President, relocated its corporate headquarters from Denver to Lexington, Kentucky, and opened an East Coast distribution center — a trifecta of operational moves the 48-unit Hawaiian coffee franchise is framing as the infrastructure build behind its next growth phase.
Wylie brings more than 20 years of franchise operations experience to the role, including prior leadership stints with Papa John's and Burn Boot Camp. He is also a co-owner of AWA Investments, the multi-unit, multi-brand franchisee group that is the largest investor in the brand's parent company, Royal Aloha Coffee Company — a dual operator-executive profile that is increasingly common among emerging franchise brands trying to signal credibility with prospective area development partners. As COO, Wylie oversaw real estate, site selection, construction, and new store openings with an explicit focus on unit-level economics. "As a franchisee myself, I know consistency in the supply chain and discipline in how we grow matter more than any single opening," Wylie said.
Supply Chain & Unit Economics
The Lexington distribution center is designed to improve supply consistency for the brand's expanding East Coast footprint and destination-market locations — historically a pain point for regionally sourced concepts trying to scale beyond their home geography. The company is simultaneously completing a back-office systems overhaul intended to give franchisees clearer visibility into store-level performance metrics, a capability gap that has hampered franchisee confidence and reinvestment at several competing specialty coffee chains. The headquarters relocation to Kentucky from Colorado also signals a deliberate pivot toward the brand's active development corridor rather than a legacy corporate address.
The broader leadership team was also restructured: Iain Douglas transitions to Chief Strategy and Brand Officer, while the brand added Stacy Nichols as Controller, Arden McLaughlin as Director of Communications and Franchise Engagement, Dave Dodson as Head of Local Store Marketing & Activation, Rachael Buckley as National Brand Manager, and Ed Yancey to lead Franchise Development — a bench build suggesting the brand is preparing for a meaningful acceleration in unit growth.
Growth From Within
Bad Ass Coffee's expansion to 48 locations in 2026 has been driven almost entirely by existing franchisees adding stores rather than by net-new area development agreements. The system now counts 10 multi-unit owners, with four more preparing to open a second location. That inside-out growth dynamic is a signal trade observers watch closely: franchisee reinvestment indicates satisfactory unit economics and operator confidence in the model, both prerequisites for attracting new franchise capital in a specialty coffee segment that has grown increasingly competitive against entrenched players like Dutch Bros and Black Rifle Coffee.
The brand projects 13 new store openings for full-year 2026, which would bring the total system count to 55 units by December. It also has more than 100 additional shops in various stages of development, pointing to a pipeline that could accelerate meaningfully once back-office and supply chain infrastructure is fully operational. Bad Ass Coffee also landed on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and drew trade attention for its Give a Hoof cause campaign, which moved more than 60 bags of its limited-edition Viejo's Blend LTO in a single week — a modest but telling indication of consumer engagement with the brand's Hawaiian provenance story.
The brand is also planning to extend distribution into grocery, hospitality, and specialty retail channels, a move that would diversify revenue beyond franchise royalties and give the parent company an off-premise CPG revenue stream — a playbook increasingly adopted by specialty beverage franchises navigating post-pandemic daypart volatility.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
