All-American - No Toning It Down | Bold Living, Deep Love, & Unapologetic Pride with Joanna Olsen

There is a particular kind of woman who does not announce herself. She does not need to. She walks into a room and something shifts. Heads turn. Energy lifts. Not because she demands it, but because she carries something you do not see often enough: a person fully at home in her own skin.

Joanna Olsen is that woman.

A 26-year entrepreneur, Florida-based owner of Coyote Ugly Saloons, property investor, and community advocate, Joanna has spent the better part of three decades building a life that belongs entirely to her. And after years of quietly dimming her own light to fit into spaces that were never quite made for her, she has stopped apologizing for taking up room.

“I live outside my box, in my own way,” she says. “And I’m really proud of where I am in life.”

That pride is earned. Every corner of it.

The Defining Moment

Most women who have found their footing in life can point to a specific season when things finally clicked. For Joanna, that season came in her mid-40s.

“I was trying to fit into society’s box of what they wanted me to be,” she reflects. What followed was a divorce, and with it, a kind of quiet liberation. She leaned into independence. She began traveling. She invested in properties. She ran her businesses on her own terms. She rebuilt her home, her income, and her sense of self simultaneously.

She is honest about the timeline. She married in her 30s, not because the relationship was the right one, but because she was ready to say yes when someone asked. It is a familiar story for many women of her generation, and she holds no bitterness about it. What she holds instead is clarity.

“I love the idea of marriage,” she says. “I hope I fall madly in love and get married again. But having your own money and your own independence is so important, in a relationship and out of one.”

Twenty-six years of entrepreneurship have a way of teaching you exactly that.

The Business of Being Bold

Joanna was among the first franchisees to join Coyote Ugly alongside founder Liliana Lovell, and she has since built the brand across every Florida location she owns. The bars are lively, unapologetic, and exactly as the movie promised: dancers on the bar, cold drinks, and an energy you cannot manufacture.

“What you see in the movie is what you’re going to see,” she says simply. She has worked to preserve that integrity at every location, while carving out her own distinct identity within the brand.

Getting there was not without friction. The bar industry is a male-dominated space. She knows this firsthand. Only about 3% of bar owners are women. In her early days, being taken seriously required something extra: poise, steadiness, and an almost stubborn confidence in herself when the room was not offering it freely.

“When I started at such a young age, it was definitely a challenge to walk through that,” she says. “But you just hold yourself high, walk with confidence, and believe in yourself. And that makes all the difference.”

Her leadership style reflects that same approach. She is not the kind of owner who sits above her team. She works alongside them. Nothing in her bars, nothing in her buildings during construction or renovation, is beneath her.

“There’s nothing in Coyote, or in building out my properties, that I won’t do,” she says. “Lead by example. Work with your staff instead of standing over them. That’s really my style.”

It is, too. You can see it in how her staff speaks of her. In how her managers have earned her trust enough that she has been able to step back from the daily grind and begin pursuing other interests, including flight lessons, yoga on the beach, and deeper community involvement.

Real estate has been a parallel passion for decades. Since she was 22 years old, Joanna has been acquiring property and trusting her instincts about location above all else.

“Location is always the key,” she says. Her most recent acquisition sits on the beach in Destin. She tells her circle the same thing every time they ask about risk in real estate: “The worst case scenario is you’ll just resell it for the same price. You can’t lose in the right areas.”

The Trade-Offs Nobody Talks About

One of the things that makes Joanna’s story so refreshing is that she does not perform any version of having it all figured out. She is direct about what ambition has cost her, personally and in matters of the heart.

“You can’t have it all. That’s just not true for women,” she says. Not a complaint. A fact. As her business grew and she traveled weekly between Tampa, Destin, and Panama City Beach, relationships became harder to sustain. Dating while building an empire has its own complications. And now that she has found a rhythm that works for her, she is honest about both the freedom and the ache.

She also carries something tender from that season. Child-bearing losses that were deeply personal and deeply quiet, in an era when women were not yet encouraged to speak openly about that kind of pain.

“Everyone already feels bad enough,” she says. “And then you already feel like, I can accomplish everything, but I can’t do the most normal thing in the world.”

She has taken time to heal. She has not closed the door. Adoption, she says, is something she thinks about often, particularly because of her longstanding relationship with the Anchorage Kids Foundation, where she has been giving her time and resources for over 20 years.

“There are so many children that need that,” she says.

The foundation is not a footnote in her story. It is threaded throughout it.

Strong Does Not Mean Closed

There is a misunderstanding that follows women like Joanna. People look at the independence, the confidence, the multiple businesses and properties, and assume she does not need anything from anyone.

“They feel like we don’t need anyone or need help,” she says. “But you still want the door opened for you. You still want to be treated like a lady. You still want to feel comfortable enough to open that feminine side of yourself.”

It is the tension that so many accomplished women know well. You get one side of the coin or the other. You are either capable or soft. Never both.

She spent years softening herself inside relationships, dimming her light so the men around her would feel less threatened. She no longer does that. But she is also clear that strength and warmth are not opposing forces in her world. They coexist. They always have.

Patriotism in Practice

Joanna lives in Destin, surrounded by the quiet presence of Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field just down the road. She grew up with a father who served in Vietnam. She understands sacrifice in a way that is not abstract.

She keeps it simple. Military personnel eat and drink free at her bars. She donates to the Wounded Warrior Project. She quotes John F. Kennedy with the ease of someone who actually lives by it.

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. That’s my whole mindset.”

Patriotism, for Joanna, is not performed at holidays or announced on social media. It is the quiet, steady act of giving more than you take. It is showing up for your city, your community, and the people who protect both.

“Loving America is being part of making it a better place,” she says. “Whatever space you’re in, whatever job you do, wherever you live. Just always improve that space. Improve someone else’s life.”

It is an uncomplicated philosophy. And maybe that is the point.

Grounded in Something Bigger

Every morning begins the same way for Joanna. She wakes up next to Utah, her French Bulldog. She unrolls her yoga mat on the beach. She does a devotional. She reads.

Faith is not incidental to her life. It is foundational. She attends Hope Lutheran Church with her mother, and has also connected with Destiny, one of the larger churches in the area.

“Being part of that church, having Bible studies, keeping everything in check,” she says. “Having family and your best friends around you. That’s what keeps me grounded.”

In hard seasons, whether a hurricane, the BP oil spill, or navigating a global pandemic with multiple businesses on the line, she turns inward before turning outward.

“What keeps me centered is taking care of myself. Mind, body, and soul. Getting good sleep. Staying close to myself during difficult times so I can be a strong leader for everyone around me.”

It is a lesson most leaders learn the hard way: you cannot pour from an empty cup.

She also fills that cup with intention. Steve Bartlett’s podcast is a regular rotation. She spends 30 minutes a day reading. She is taking flight lessons again, and finds a peace in the cockpit that is hard to describe.

“Being up in the air, concentrating on just the instruments, no phone. That’s where I find true peace.”

What She Leaves Behind

Ask Joanna about legacy and her answer is immediate, and completely in line with everything she has already said.

“Personally, I want people to know I was a kind and giving person. And through business, I want Coyote Ugly to be a world-known name for hundreds of years to come.”

That is it. No complicated legacy statement. No brand manifesto. Just kindness, generosity, and the quiet pride of having built something real.

Her advice to younger women is equally clear: “Go for that business idea you’ve been thinking about. Do it when you’re young. Calculate the risk and go. What are you going to lose? If it doesn’t work out, you go back to what you were doing before.”

She lives by the Nike code, as she calls it. Just do it. And then, when the roadblocks come, and they always do, just do not quit.

“Never giving up,” she says. “That’s why the strong entrepreneurs get through. Not because they were never scared or never struggled. Because they kept going.”

No Toning It Down

There is a question that has been circling this conversation from the beginning. What does it mean to live without dimming yourself down?

For Joanna Olsen, the answer is not complicated.

“I do not tone myself down anymore. When you’re young, you do. Because that’s what females are taught. We apologize. We adjust. We live a little smaller. But I live in my true skin now. I do what I want to do. I go where I want to go. And that comes from having strong independence, financially and personally.”

She does not say this with bravado. She says it the way someone says a fact they have earned the right to say.

And when she walks into a room, no announcement necessary, you understand exactly what she means.

Photos by Nicole Thompson

*Joanna Olsen is the owner of Florida’s Coyote Ugly Saloon locations and a longtime supporter of the Anchorage Kids Foundation. She is based in Destin, Florida.

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Coastalpolitan Magazine | 2026 APR-MAY

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