Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii is saddled up for an era of expansion, having opened its 47th and 48th locations last week, with another 16 on the way by year’s end. Brand executives say that growth is only beginning, and a keen interest in nontraditional units is key to those ambitions.
Scott Snyder, CEO of Royal Aloha Coffee Company (dba Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii).
The brand roughly quadrupled its footprint over the last five years, adding six nontrad units with scaling efforts picking up pace in Florida and along the East Coast. CEO Scott Snyder said locations beyond the typical brick-and-mortar cafes are a core component to fueling that growth.
Bad Ass Coffee’s nontrad portfolio spans travel centers, mall kiosks, a 30-foot trailer and a microcafe situated within a bustling salon suite. Beyond maintaining promising sales numbers, Snyder said, those models capture valuable brand exposure in new markets.
“Non-traditional locations were not an intentional strategy,” said Snyder, who assumed the chief executive position shortly after a brand acquisition in 2019.
That changed when a developer inquired about opening a Bad Ass Coffee cafe within a travel plaza with an existing Mexican restaurant concept in Lutz, Florida.
Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii opened its first travel plaza location in Lutz, Florida, in September, 2023.
“Lo and behold, it did really well,” Snyder said of the Lutz unit that opened in September 2023, adding that Florida already featured more Bad Ass Coffee cafes than any other state. “Not only did it do well in terms of an introduction of our brand to their existing customer base, but it also began to pull new customers who knew the brand, who remembered the brand or who had visited a different Florida location. … They brought in new customers for the rest of their business and added to their customer mix in that location.”
Snyder said the brand approached that unit as a pilot, but it quickly showed promise that warranted replication. The brand followed up on that cafe-within-a-travel-plaza concept by opening a location within a 19,000-square-foot travel center in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at the start of 2026, which quickly became a solid performer.
Finding success within travel centers is not unique to Bad Ass Coffee, according to Abigail Whetstone, founder and principal consultant at Non Trad Consulting Group since 2017. She confidently placed such plazas among the most promising nontrad restaurant and cafe locations.
“More and more, you’re seeing brands get snapped onto these travel centers or rebranded,” Whetstone said. “One of my clients is Naf Naf Middle Eastern Grill, and they have a relationship with Love’s (Travel Stops), and they’re growing in new markets through that Love’s relationship, which has been great for both parties.”
Even beyond travel plazas, Bad Ass Coffee’s nontrad locations effectively tapped into high-volume, captive-audience real estate without requiring a standalone cafe build-out, including the mall kiosks and the aforementioned salon-suite microcafe affectionately referred to within the company as “Baby Bad Ass.” Thus, Snyder said, the brand added non-traditional locations to its 2026 franchise disclosure document, formally opening the door to exploring locations like airports, train stations and stadiums.
Abigail Whetstone, Founder and Principal Consultant at Non Trad Consulting Group
With more than 20 years of experience focused on nontrad restaurant venues, Whetstone said brands increasingly view such locations as advantageous because traditional real estate has grown more complex and saturated.
“There are several great things that come out of getting your brand in some of these really captive venues,” Whetstone said. “One is just brand awareness, it’s huge. You can’t buy real estate that’s going to get you 60 million eyes on your brand a year, like you do in an airport (with) the captive nature and the huge crowds.”
Throughout her career, Whetstone reported observing that restaurants are far more likely to achieve success with nontrad units in markets where consumers already recognize the brand. Additionally, she said, being prepared and adaptable is particularly critical for nontrad locations because of the complex nature frequently surrounding those leases.
“Because these are cyclical and finite leases, the opportunities are there, but you have to be opportunistic about them,” she said. “You can’t be like, ‘I want to be in that airport’ if they just did an RFP three years ago and they’re three years into a 10-year term. You’re gonna have to wait on that one until it becomes available again.”
Bad Ass Coffee is adhering to those principles. Snyder said the brand’s minimum development schedule is three stores, and the first to enter a market must be a full cafe.
“We try to know as much as we can, Snyder said, adding, “but I think you evaluate each opportunity initially based on the criteria: Is it going to support and build the brand? Does the opportunity allow us enough, enough opportunity to communicate what the brand is all about?”
Whetstone said nontrad venues like stadiums, airports and college campuses often require minimum annual guarantees of rent that exceed 20 percent of topline sales, because those contracts are typically biddable. Additionally, such venues frequently limit menu offerings for various reasons and require the use of consolidated POS systems — meaning loyalty programs and other tech solutions don’t always translate.
Still, the upside of nontrad venues often makes up for those headaches, Whetstone said, so interested operators should have their homework done and be ready to pounce.
“Know your pillars, know your non-negotiables,” Whetstone said. “Get ready on your menus, understand the limited day parts, the add-ons, whatever it is. And then, when that opportunity knocks on the door, you’re ready to go.”
Snyder said Bad Ass Coffee’s plans for 2027 include its first presence in airports and an increase in units at higher-end shopping malls. Additionally, the brand is exploring tech partner opportunities to cross-utilize data with data sources that nontrad venues use.
