May 13, 2021

Residents in Tea are getting their only dedicated coffee shop this summer.

Longtime resident Linda Kokenge is opening Zooks Coffee Bar in a new building south of the GrandStay Hotel & Suites. A new child care center fills most of the building on Gateway Lane.

“The community is going kind of crazy and is excited now,” she said as news spreads about the coffee shop.

Zooks will use beans from Parable Coffee Co., which does its roasting in Tea.

“I’ve been working with him and will be using his coffee because I love the fact that he’s local,” Kokenge said of Parable owner Brandon Wollman. He’ll also be available to help train baristas, she said.

“We have a lot of customers in Tea looking for our coffee,” Wollman said. “It’s awesome that we’re going to have a coffee shop here.”

In addition to coffee, espresso and blended drinks, Zooks will serve an assortment of teas and smoothies, and will feature Lotus plant energy drinks, Kokenge said.

“It’s OK not to like coffee,” she said with a laugh.

She is reaching out to residents to find out what they like to drink.

“One hundred percent of the focus is community-driven. I want to give the residents exactly what they want. I’ve asked them what they drink, what they like. I want to create the menu around their needs and wants.”

While Zooks won’t have a full kitchen, Kokenge is planning to offer baked goods, yogurt and breakfast sandwiches. For lunch, she’ll serve sandwiches, soups and salads.

She’ll offer delivery, online ordering and a loyalty rewards program.

The 1,500-square-foot coffee shop will have a drive-thru, and there will be seating for 20 to 25 people.

“We’ll also have a meeting room in there that can seat five to six people,” she said.

The coffee shop will have an unexpected vibe, she said.

“I’ve been describing it as edgy, kind of like a New York City loft. The biggest thing for me is I want to create something very unexpected. I see this as a gift to them,” she said of the community. “People traveling through or from Sioux Falls, I want them to walk in and be blown away. It’s not something you would expect in the small town of Tea, South Dakota.”

Running a coffee shop will be a new career for Kokenge, whose background is in marketing and business development. She most recently worked for a global security services company and traveled a lot for her job.

When the pandemic slowed down her work, it gave her time to reassess, she said. Kokenge decided she wanted “to do something more close to home, more community-driven and not being on the road as much. This popped into my head, and I thought I should look at it. … It just took hold of my heart and wouldn’t leave me, and here we are, getting ready to open.”

She hopes to open Zooks at the end of June, but that could be delayed depending on the arrival of equipment and timing for subcontractors to do the build-out.

Kokenge is still finalizing hours but she’s tentatively planning for 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, possibly Tuesday through Sunday.