PJ's Coffee vs Dutch Bros: Only One Is a Franchise

If you searched for PJ’s Coffee versus Dutch Bros as businesses you might own, the most useful thing to know comes first: only one of them is for sale. PJ’s Coffee runs an active franchise system and recruits outside operators. Dutch Bros stopped awarding franchises in 2017 and says so plainly on its own site. That single fact reshapes the whole comparison, because you cannot actually buy the second brand no matter how the numbers look.

FranchiseFeast does not sell franchises and is not paid by either company here. Every figure below traces to a franchisor’s own site, a company SEC filing summary, or a dated source, all cited at the bottom. None of it is an earnings figure or a projection of what a location makes.

Can you franchise PJ’s Coffee and Dutch Bros? The short version

PJ’s, yes. Dutch Bros, no. That is the entire answer to the question that likely brought you here, and it changes what research is even useful.

If you are comparing these two as potential businesses to own, only one comparison is real. Dutch Bros has no Item 7 investment range to evaluate, no franchise fee to negotiate, and no franchise sales team to call, because it is not selling franchises to anyone outside the company. PJ’s Coffee has all three, spelled out in a Franchise Disclosure Document that is refiled every year. So the honest version of this matchup is not a tie-breaker between two options; it is one real option and one that is closed.

Why Dutch Bros isn’t an option, and what its path really is

Dutch Bros franchised in its earlier years, then began narrowing the path in 2008 by selling new franchises only to long-tenured employees, and by 2017 it stopped awarding franchises to anyone. Every location built since is company-owned, with an internal operator role, an employee-promotion track that replaces franchise ownership. As of March 31, 2026, Dutch Bros ran 1,177 total locations across 25 states, 844 company-operated and 333 still under legacy franchise agreements that predate 2017. It even buys back individual legacy territories over time.

So if you want to run a Dutch Bros, the only real route is joining the company as an employee and earning an operator role, which is a job, not a franchise you purchase. None of PJ’s numbers below apply to it, because Dutch Bros does not have those numbers to disclose.

PJ’s Coffee: the real numbers, by format

PJ’s is the side of this comparison you can actually act on, and it publishes its figures on its own franchise site. Because the investment swings widely by format, the format is the first decision.

Ongoing, PJ’s charges a 5 percent royalty and a 2 percent marketing fund, both on net sales, and requires a $500,000 net worth with $175,000 in liquid capital. Qualified veterans get 20 percent off the franchise fee. Our full PJ’s Coffee cost breakdown walks through each of these with the source, and the franchise royalty calculator shows what a 5 percent royalty actually costs a location over a year. Confirm every figure in the current FDD, which is the only version that governs your agreement.

Format is the other real difference

Even setting aside that you cannot franchise Dutch Bros, these are different businesses to run. PJ’s traditional format is a sit-down cafe with a dining room, table service dynamics, and the higher buildout and staffing that come with seating. Its end-cap and non-traditional formats trim that down, but the brand’s identity is a full-service New Orleans coffeehouse. Dutch Bros is the opposite: a compact, drive-thru-only building of up to about 950 square feet, built for fast car-window service with little or no interior seating.

That means the buyer who fits PJ’s, someone drawn to a hospitality-forward cafe, is often a different person than the one drawn to a lean, high-throughput drive-thru. If the drive-thru model is what you actually want, the more useful comparison is against a brand you can still franchise in that format, which is where our Human Bean versus Dutch Bros breakdown and the roundup of brands like Dutch Bros that do franchise come in.

Which buyer fits, and what to do next

Because only one of these is for sale, this is less a head-to-head and more two answers to two questions. If you want a hospitality-forward cafe you can actually franchise, PJ’s is the real option, and the next step is requesting its FDD and reading Items 5, 6, and 7 with a franchise attorney. If you specifically want the Dutch Bros experience, the only path is the internal operator route, which is a career move rather than a purchase. Either way, our coffee franchise cost guide puts PJ’s alongside the drive-thru brands you can still buy, so you can compare the ones that are genuinely available.