First Franchise Milestone

Mokas Coffee & Eatery opened its first-ever franchised unit in Olathe, Kan., on September 30, marking a structural shift for the 20-year-old Kansas café brand from a purely corporate-owned operator to an active franchisor. The 3,100-square-foot location at 11814 S Fellows St is the flagship for a six-unit area development agreement spanning Johnson, Douglas, and Shawnee counties — the core of the Kansas City metro.

Franchisee Christian Coleman, founder and president of Midwest Restaurant Group, signed the multi-unit deal and is expected to create between 45 and 60 jobs at the Olathe unit alone. Coleman brings an atypical hospitality résumé: he began his career managing VIP operations and sponsorships at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., and later became the youngest professional tournament director in the sport. He also co-founded an 80-acre organic farm and developed a 20,000-square-foot industrial hemp drying facility in Newton, Kan.

The Brand's Footprint

Prior to the Olathe opening, Mokas operated five corporate-owned locations in Salina, Colby, and Wichita, with three additional corporate units under development in Wichita and Hays. The brand's pipeline now includes those eight corporate sites plus Coleman's six-unit franchise commitment — putting the system's near-term potential at roughly 15 units system-wide. Mokas positions around in-house roasted coffee, drive-thru-accessible café service, and a made-to-order breakfast and lunch menu including wraps, sandwiches, soups, and salads.

The franchisor of record is JRI Hospitality, the Salina-based multi-concept operator that controls Mokas. JRI runs 145-plus units across 18 states and is the largest franchisee of Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, with more than 130 locations nationally. That operational infrastructure — including multi-unit oversight, supply chain relationships, and training systems — provides Mokas a more mature franchise-support backbone than most emerging café brands at a comparable unit count.

What It Means for Operators

"Christian embodies the entrepreneurial, hospitality-driven mindset we look for in franchisees," said Jason Ingermanson, president of Mokas Coffee & Eatery and CEO of JRI Hospitality. "Watching him open the doors on our first-ever franchise location, after celebrating our 20th anniversary, is a full-circle moment for our brand."

The Olathe opening positions Mokas squarely in a competitive Kansas City daypart battleground where regional café concepts compete alongside national QSR coffee players for morning and midday traffic. For prospective multi-unit operators evaluating emerging franchise development opportunities in the fast-casual café segment, the Coleman deal signals that Mokas is structuring growth through area development agreements rather than single-unit licensing — a model that typically yields faster unit velocity and more predictable royalty-stream scaling for the franchisor.

The brand's drive-thru-inclusive café format and regional sourcing emphasis also align with broader off-premise and specialty-coffee trends that have driven category expansion across the Midwest over the past three years. Mokas says it is actively recruiting additional franchisee candidates for markets in Kansas and beyond.

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.