Coffee Jerks Make Nice in OKC

A customer sits at the table in front of Coffee Jerk’s counter in Oklahoma City. The shop opened in November 2017 with a grand opening on Jan. 30, 2018. (Ryan Naeve/The Vista)

The pot is on and coffee is brewing at northwest Oklahoma City’s newest shop, serving up hot, iced and frozen drinks daily.
Coffee Jerks is located on May and 122 St. in Oklahoma City in the NorthPark Mall, just south of the Kilpatrick Turnpike.
Although it has been open since Nov. 2017, the shop just hosted their grand opening on Jan. 30, selling coffee for only $1.
“It [the grand opening] was awesome, we probably saw upwards of 1,300 people to 1,500 people in one day,” said Kenny Wooldridge, owner of Coffee Jerks.


The shop offers over a dozen coffee and non-coffee options, ranging anywhere from $3-$6. The menu can be found on Coffee Jerk’s website.
“We try to model after what the consumers want and they want a menu style like Starbucks,” said Wolldridge. “So, we just took a higher grade coffee, [which] in my opinion tastes better, and made a menu like that.”
Wooldridge said the coffee, from a roaster out of Columbus, Ohio, is a blend of Costa Rican and Peruvian coffee beans.
“I really like the way they roast their coffee, it’s really smooth. There’s no bitterness and it’s an organic coffee,” said Wooldridge. “It comes straight from the fields. They roast it and then send it straight to us so it’s a pure coffee.”
According to Wooldridge, part of what makes the shop unique is the coffee blend, because he believes there aren’t any blends like this one in the south. The quality of service is another thing that Wooldridge said makes this shop unique.
“I have got some great employees. We want to be able to supply any kind of coffee beverage a person is wanting,” said Wooldridge.
Wooldridge said the name Coffee Jerks is to honor his late grandmother, who had a job as a soda jerk. A soda jerk is what people in the 1950s called the person who served soft drinks at the drugstore. The term derived from the jerking motion of swinging the fountain handle back and forth.
Next door to Coffee Jerks is an Anytime Fitness, where Wooldridge also works. He said that it was part of the reason for the location.
Another reason for the location is the lack of coffee shops in this area of OKC.
“I live on this side of town. There’s really not that many good coffee shops around here unless you absolutely love Starbucks,” Wooldridge said. “Other than Starbucks there’s really nothing. Especially on this side of May.”
The shop has already received feedback, especially following the grand opening. Wooldridge said that about 99.9 percent of the feedback has been good and the bad feedback was not bad necessarily, just something to learn from.
“I like to see some of this space being utilized,” said Coffee Jerk customer Kendra Winter. “I also like to see a local business thriving. You don’t see a lot of those anymore.”
Winter said one of the reasons she likes Coffee Jerks is because when she uses the drive-through, the baristas give her small cups of whip cream for her dogs when they are with her.
The shop is student friendly, with free wifi for customers and a table area that can be used for studying.
The hours for Coffee Jerks Monday through Friday 6:30 a.m. – 6 p.m., Saturday 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Wooldridge said that the hours for Saturday and Sunday may change depending on traffic flow.

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