{"id":11791,"date":"2026-04-28T21:48:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=11791"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:48:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:48:36","slug":"this-coffee-franchise-grew-from-a-40k-kiosk-to-1b-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=11791","title":{"rendered":"This Coffee Franchise Grew From a $40K Kiosk to $1B Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Don and Linda Eckles couldn\u2019t get a bank loan, so they borrowed $40,000 from friends and family to <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chloesorvino\/2026\/04\/25\/from-coffee-kiosk-to-billion-dollar-business-how-scooters-became-one-of-americas-top-franchises\/\" id=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chloesorvino\/2026\/04\/25\/from-coffee-kiosk-to-billion-dollar-business-how-scooters-became-one-of-americas-top-franchises\/\">open a coffee kiosk in Omaha<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The couple told Forbes they worked every shift for the first four months at the 650-square-foot location, a remodeled Chinese restaurant. Linda stamped a smiley face sticker on every coffee lid. After breaking even, they opened a second location. By the fifth store, they\u2019d borrowed $150,000 to build two kiosks at a nearby mall, but construction costs nearly bankrupted them. They started franchising in 2001 at the request of friends and customers who wanted to open their own locations.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward 25 years: Scooter\u2019s Coffee now has 912 locations across 32 states. Those franchises pulled in $859 million in sales last year. The franchise model is insanely profitable \u2014 nearly all costs are handled by franchisees, giving the Eckles\u2019 holding company an estimated 62.5% net margin. Top franchisees post net income margins over 20%. Last year, someone offered to buy the entire company for $1 billion. The Eckles turned it down cold. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Don and Linda Eckles couldn\u2019t get a bank loan, so they borrowed $40,000 from friends and family to <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chloesorvino\/2026\/04\/25\/from-coffee-kiosk-to-billion-dollar-business-how-scooters-became-one-of-americas-top-franchises\/\" id=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chloesorvino\/2026\/04\/25\/from-coffee-kiosk-to-billion-dollar-business-how-scooters-became-one-of-americas-top-franchises\/\">open a coffee kiosk in Omaha<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The couple told Forbes they worked every shift for the first four months at the 650-square-foot location, a remodeled Chinese restaurant. Linda stamped a smiley face sticker on every coffee lid. After breaking even, they opened a second location. By the fifth store, they\u2019d borrowed $150,000 to build two kiosks at a nearby mall, but construction costs nearly bankrupted them. They started franchising in 2001 at the request of friends and customers who wanted to open their own locations.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward 25 years: Scooter\u2019s Coffee now has 912 locations across 32 states. Those franchises pulled in $859 million in sales last year. The franchise model is insanely profitable \u2014 nearly all costs are handled by franchisees, giving the Eckles\u2019 holding company an estimated 62.5% net margin. Top franchisees post net income margins over 20%. Last year, someone offered to buy the entire company for $1 billion. The Eckles turned it down cold. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/buying-a-franchise\/coffee-kiosk-franchise-is-worth-1-billion\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don and Linda Eckles couldn\u2019t get a bank loan, so they borrowed $40,000 from friends and family to open a coffee kiosk in Omaha. The couple told Forbes they worked every shift for the first four months at the 650-square-foot location, a remodeled Chinese restaurant. Linda stamped a smiley face sticker on every coffee lid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-brands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}