Leadership Moves
Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii has promoted Tom Wylie from Chief Operating Officer to President, the Hawaiian-coffee franchise announced Sept. 22, as the brand simultaneously opened an East Coast distribution center and relocated its headquarters from Denver to Lexington, Kentucky. The moves are designed to harden the supply chain and unit-level economics ahead of what the brand expects to be its most active growth year yet.
Wylie is a co-owner of AWA Investments, the multi-unit, multi-brand franchisee group that holds the largest investor stake in Bad Ass Coffee's parent company, Royal Aloha Coffee Company. He brings more than 20 years of franchise operations experience — including leadership stints at Papa John's and Burn Boot Camp — and since joining as COO has had direct oversight of real estate, site selection, construction, and new-store openings. "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.
The broader leadership buildout also elevated Iain Douglas to Chief Strategy and Brand Officer and added five new hires spanning finance, communications, local store marketing, brand management, and franchise development.
Distribution and Back-Office Infrastructure
Much of the first half of 2026 was spent on infrastructure rather than headline unit counts. The new Lexington distribution center anchors supply for the brand's growing East Coast footprint and its destination-market locations — a format category that creates irregular replenishment challenges distinct from standard strip-center cafés. The HQ relocation keeps corporate operations co-located with the DC, improving coordination between supply and franchise support teams.
On the back-of-house side, the company is completing a full revamp of its back-office systems, giving franchisees clearer visibility into their own unit-level economics and better tools to manage store performance. For single-store operators and small multi-unit groups alike, that kind of real-time P&L transparency has become table stakes as labor and input costs stay elevated across the specialty-coffee segment.
Growth From Within
Bad Ass Coffee entered 2026 at 48 total locations, with the bulk of that growth coming from existing franchisees adding units rather than new-to-brand operators. The chain now counts 10 multi-unit owners, and four additional franchisees are preparing to open a second location — a reinvestment signal the brand treats as a leading indicator of model health. "The clearest signal of where this brand is headed is our existing owners choosing to open their second and third stores," Wylie said.
The company projects 13 new openings for the full year, which would bring the total to 55 locations by December 2026. That trajectory earned Bad Ass Coffee a spot on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies. The brand's Give a Hoof cause campaign, recognized by AdAge, moved more than 60 bags of its limited-edition Viejo's Blend in a single week — a dispensed-beverage and branded-merchandise play that illustrates how specialty-coffee franchises are leaning into limited-time offers to drive both traffic and loyalty.
For convenience channel observers, the brand's announced plans to expand into grocery, hospitality, and specialty retail channels make it a name worth tracking. As premium coffee concepts continue to pressure dispensed-beverage programs inside the c-store forecourt, franchised café brands with strengthened supply infrastructure are increasingly able to execute retail and wholesale adjacencies that compete directly with in-store coffee programs. The specialty-coffee and foodservice competition landscape continues to intensify for c-store operators looking to hold share in the high-margin hot-beverage category.
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.
