New Family Carries On Brand Built at Tuscaloosa's Turbo Coffee

Good morning and welcome to the third feature highlighting a participant in Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week, where we're talking with Jerica Whittle and her son Zade Wood, the owner and vice president of operations of Turbo Coffee on 8th Street in downtown Tuscaloosa.

Each day this week, the Thread and Visit Tuscaloosa will profile one of the businesses participating in the annual event, presented this year by Huntington Bank.

Hungry to learn more? Over 50 participating eateries will offer unique items or special discounts on their most popular orders when the extended Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week returns June 18th through 27th. Learn more and get connected at the Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week website now.

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New Owners, Familiar Family Mission

Although Reese Shirey sold Turbo Coffee last year, the cafe he founded in Florence and expanded to Tuscaloosa and elsewhere is still what he started — a family-owned space built around unique, seasonal drinks and the fresh, house-made food to go with them.

Tuscaloosa's Turbo opened on Eighth Street in 2018, right next door to Shirey's brother Austin's Greasy Hands Barber Shop. Since early 2025, it has been owned and operated by Jerica and Scott Whittle, who run all four Turbo locations and their three Miami Ice shaved ice shops in North Alabama alongside their adult children.

"I got the phone call that the owner wanted to sell all the locations, and originally, it was more to know if I knew anybody who was interested. And I hung up and just had that gut feeling like, this is what I want to do," Whittle told the Thread. "We know what it's like to run and function a small business. We have always been looking for something in the winter, because shaved ice is summer — no one wants shaved ice in the winter when it's 20 degrees outside. So I went home, thought about it, prayed about it and said, 'Let me do my research.' About a month later, we called the previous owner and said we wanted to buy it."

Whittle said that as Turbo’s founder looked to step back and raise his young family, her own kids were hitting their stride as young adults and could become integral to running their growing entrepreneurial empire.

A North Alabama native, Whittle said her family was already familiar with the Turbo brand and saw a great opportunity to step in, stay faithful to the brand's already-established tenets and grow it across its locations in Tuscaloosa, Florence, Huntsville and along Highway 30A in Florida.

"These are the businesses that we want our children to be a part of,” Whittle said. “We want, as a family, to continue to grow this business. It’ll come to a point where, for me, at my age, I won’t want to keep opening new stores and continuing on. The next generation, this will be passed down to them, and they have the opportunity, if they want, to open 20 more and grow this business to the next level."

House-Made From the Ground Up

The downtown Tuscaloosa cafe is a quiet space decorated extensively with Alabama athletics memorabilia and flooded with natural light from big display windows and smaller skylights.

Inside, college students, young professionals and Crimson Tide athletes flock to Turbo for its seasonally rotating menu of coffees and espressos, always-available favorites and creative snacks, pastries and sandwiches.

"We pride ourselves on things being house-made and healthy, so we feel that we’re fueling students and athletes both in a good, healthy way. They’re not coming in and getting a lot of sugar. They have options, from energy drinks to lattes, matchas to açaí bowls with homemade granola and fresh fruits, or breakfast sandwiches," Whittle said. "Everything’s homemade here. All of our syrups are made in-house; we don’t buy any of the processed, pump-out products. We know how it's made, we make it properly, and that’s what they’re getting."

The seasonal menu changes once a quarter, giving Whittle and her team frequent opportunities to experiment with new offerings. This summer's lineup includes a raspberry danish latte with cream cheese cold foam, an iced watermelon matcha and more.

The mainstays are available year-round — ceremonial-grade matcha, a trio of breakfast sandwiches, house-made granola and açaí bowls and drinks inspired by popular cereals like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios and Cocoa Puffs.

When Florence’s second Turbo Coffee opens later this summer, the family will oversee nine brick-and-mortar operations between the two brands, and Whittle said they employ almost 200 people.

Zade Wood, Whittle’s oldest son, left Whitefish, Montana and returned to Alabama to help his parents with their growing businesses.

"We’re really passionate about our syrup, our granola, and everything else being made in-house. It’s not easy. I mean, I have a whole watermelon back there that's going to be cut and made into a syrup here in the next couple of hours," Wood said. "That’s something that's different, and I think that really sets us apart as far as quality goes. I’m a black coffee drinker, but since we started running Turbo, I’ve been getting into the more fruity flavors, and it really does make a difference. It’s something we’re extremely blessed to be able to do and proud of."

Fueling the Crimson Tide

Turbo is also an emerging leader in the ever-evolving Name, Image and Likeness landscape and has inked deals with Crimson Tide student-athletes here in Tuscaloosa, as well as at the University of North Alabama in Florence and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

"We've got NIL deals in all of our locations," Whittle said. "Typically, on the first of every month, athletes receive a gift card, and it goes immediately into their email. It's like an e-card: they just add it to their Apple Wallet and then use it. And then they post on their social media so many times a month."

Whittle said that has allowed her family to form relationships with athletes and coaches at all three schools - even as we did this interview, a Five-star Alabama Football recruit stopped in for a coffee and to say hello.

"We did an entire program with the women's basketball program last season, and every time they got on their charter to fly out of town, we would deliver their Turbo to them," she said. "Every time you see them get on the plane, they're holding a Turbo bowl or a cup as they get on their charter. And we had a running joke where every time they got Turbo, they won. Coach Kelly Curry would tell me, 'You guys are fueling us.'"

What's Brewing Next

Whittle said Turbo, like any Tuscaloosa coffee shop or eatery, is trying to make the best of the annual summer slump by deep-cleaning the space and planning ahead. But they're also preparing to open a second location in Florence, where Shirey first launched Turbo Coffee more than a decade ago.

"We’re opening our fifth location in two months, and it is going to be in Florence again. We’re going on a campus, and we’re opening our own roastery — Turbo Coffee Roasters,” she said. “So we’re actually launching Turbo Coffee Roasters. We’ll be roasting our own beans, and for that growth — obviously we already have our five locations, but we would also be able to offer wholesale beans to other coffee shops and grocery stores.”

This summer is a great time to stop by Tuscaloosa’s Turbo and try out the seasonal menu while it’s less crowded.

For Restaurant Week, Turbo is debuting the viral raspberry cream cheese danish latte that went “viral” after being introduced at Little Joy Coffee in Minnesota and serving locally farmed Alabama zucchini bread, available only during the 10-day promotion.

Turbo Coffee is open every day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2010 8th Street in downtown Tuscaloosa.

This is the third profile in this year's series, which partners with Visit Tuscaloosa to highlight locally owned businesses each summer. Tuscaloosa Restaurant Week 2026 is presented by Huntington Bank.

For ongoing coverage of restaurant and retail development in West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread!