Sassy coffee label brews controversy
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer
It's been condemned as immoral and tasteless, rude and tacky, but Michael Bilanzich offers no apologies for the name of his business.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
After all, he said, the Bad Ass Coffee Co. is nothing more than a tribute to the legendary donkeys that hauled beans down the mountainside in the early days of the Kona coffee plantations.
The Bad Ass Coffee Co. shop at Aloha Tower Marketplace features a variety of coffee and merchandise. The company got its start on the Big Island in 1989; three years later the expense and logistics of running a national chain from Hawai'i prompted company president Michael Bilanzich to move his headquarters to Salt Lake City.
Uh huh. And the Hooters restaurant chain is a celebration of the owl.
For better or for worse, the Bad Ass Coffee Co. of Hawaii Inc. is taking its sassy moniker across North America and brewing up a hot cup of controversy just about everywhere one of its franchises opens.
The latest grand opening three weeks ago brought jeers from some Tuscaloosa, Ala., city officials as well as a shot of nationwide publicity that included half-hour reports on CNN, segments on network newscasts and wire reports in scores of newspapers.
"I am certainly pleased to get national coverage every time we open a store," said Bilanzich, the company's president.
There are now 32 Bad Ass Coffee shops in the United States and Canada — including eight in Hawai'i — and the company is aiming for 200 more franchises in the next 18 months.
Although based in Salt Lake City, the privately held company started on the Big Island in July 1989 and began franchise licensing a few years later.
In 1995, Bilanzich, whose primary business is manufacturing men's hairpieces, was vacationing on Maui when he and his wife chanced upon the Kihei store. They enjoyed the Kona coffee, bought a Bad Ass logo hat and grabbed a brochure describing franchise opportunities.
On the plane home, they showed their hat to others in their Utah tour group. "To them it was a hoot. We could have sold everyone a hat," he recalled.
Encouraged by the response, Bilanzich acquired the Utah license and opened four stores over a three-month period.
Meanwhile, the company's board of directors in Hawai'i asked Bilanzich to invest an additional $150,000 and ended up electing him president. Three years later
Bilanzich moved the headquarters to Salt Lake City because of the expense and logistics of running a national chain from Hawai'i.
Since then legal problems and old liabilities limited the chain's expansion, but it grew nevertheless. Bilanzich said the company is now poised to take off.
Bilanzich does not deny that a major part of the chain's success is because of the attention-grabbing name.
"It's the hook that gets people to try us. Do you think we would have done as well if we opened up as Walter's Coffee Shop? I don't think so," he said.
It can, however, be a challenge opening a store with the word "ass" prominently displayed in the signage.
In conservative Utah, some mall owners refused to lease retail space, and the Deseret News in Salt Lake City wouldn't accept the company's help-wanted ads.
Another obstacle is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches its flock — about 70 percent of Utah's population — to avoid caffeine.
"If you can successfully open a coffee shop in Utah, you can make it anywhere," he said.
It is the store openings that create the biggest stir. In November, for example, it was national news when the Manassas, Va., franchise opened in a strip mall between a Christian goods store and a toy shop. One indignant woman told the Northern Virginia Journal her young son took one look at the sign and asked if it was a swear word. She said she planned to shop elsewhere.
When franchise operators and employees are questioned about the name, they're told to stick to the company line: It's the donkeys that hauled the beans in old Kona. According to the company's Web site, "The native people of Kona Hawaii remember the days of the 'Bad Ass Ones.' "
Historian Sheree Chase, curator with the Kona Historical Society, said she has never heard the term in 15 years of research and interviewing coffee plantation old-timers.
"I'm not saying they didn't find a coffee farmer who said that, but I've never heard it from anyone," Chase said.
Bilanzich admits he's unaware of the authenticity of the "folklore," only that it was in use by the company when he bought in.
As for what folks think of the "Bad Ass" name, Bilanzich, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, said people are either drawn to it or repelled by it. The bottom line: It's only as bad as you want to make it.
"If you look at the word 'ass' as having only one meaning, then you're on thin ice," he said.
Bilanzich views the company's expansion plans as a mixed blessing: As more stores open, the shock factor will diminish, and a new location won't be such a big deal anymore.
He may also have competition from former associate, Dennis Lovell, who owned the Bad Ass Coffee Co. before Bilanzich's arrival in Hawai'i.
Lovell, a Kona resident who oversees five Keoki's Surfin' Ass Coffee Co. shops on the Big Island, opened his first Mainland franchise this weekend in Shreveport, La., and he said he plans to open 100 stores in the next two years.
