Kent Coleman just opened his 17th Big O Tires store, and this one is a monster: more than 12,000 square feet with offices and 11 service bays, planted right in the heart of Salt Lake City. For a franchisee who has spent years quietly stacking locations across the Mountain West, it is another sign that bigger, not just more, is the strategy.
The new shop sits on land Coleman acquired last summer, according to Modern Tire Dealer. Coleman owns Salt Lake City-based Badwater Inc., which the outlet notes appears on the 2026 MTD 100, and the Salt Lake City store marks the 17th addition to an operation that includes locations in Utah.
A Measured Approach to Growth
A Measured Approach to Growth Coleman has described his expansion as deliberate rather than opportunistic. “We are very measured. I want a location I know can be a high-volume location. We also want to have continual growth at existing locations,” he said, per the same outlet. That philosophy traces back years, with Coleman previously expressing a desire to add locations selectively and target high-volume sites.
The new Salt Lake City shop has more than 12,000 square feet and 11 service bays.
Part of a Broader Utah Build-Out
Coleman's Salt Lake City opening follows a string of similarly sized projects around the state. He added a 10,500-square-foot Big O Tires shop in Murray, Utah, located at 6039 South State Street near Fashion Place, which marked his 14th location in the state at the time, according to a press release carried by Utah Business. That Murray store was also his second in that city.
Other franchisees have been expanding in the same market. Austin Jenkins opened a 14,000-square-foot Big O Tires shop at 19 S 2000 W in West Point, Utah, marking his fourth franchise location in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, Utah Business reported separately. The West Point and Murray additions were part of a wider push that saw Big O Tires add six new franchise locations across Arizona and Utah, according to Tire Review.
Big O's Companywide Push
The Salt Lake City opening lands as Big O Tires itself is leaning into store-count growth nationally. The chain added 14 new stores in 2025, pushing its network to 470 franchise locations across 25 states, Tire Review reported in an executive interview. Company leadership has said new-store growth and same-store sales growth are its two primary goals for 2026, with plans to accelerate store-base expansion while picking franchisees who fit the system.
Big O Tires has also been building out its private-label tire lineup, currently offering the Big Foot II all-terrain line and the Legacy AS Plus passenger and performance line, with a new Tier Three product called Big O2 in development for exclusive sale through franchisees, per Tire Review. Years earlier, the chain reported opening 12 new stores and hitting a 100% franchisee renewal rate in 2021, according to a report from TBC Corporation, which also noted that Coleman was honored as a Big O Tires Franchisee of the Year in 2022 alongside Kansas single-store owner Dutch Tryon.
Coleman's own company, Coleman Group Tire, lists 17 locations across Utah, Colorado, and Idaho on its website — a tally that lines up with the new Salt Lake City store marking his 17th overall. Between his measured approach to site selection and Big O's broader push to accelerate its store count, the new shop reads as one more data point in a Mountain West tire market that keeps getting more crowded, and bigger, one superstore at a time.
