Support Black Business: Coated Nutrition

A protein shake and tea shop recently had their grand opening inside the Horace W. Moody Intramural Sports Complex. Founded by Jonathan Coats, Coated Nutrition offers gym goers a healthy post-workout drink or mass builder.
Located in the back-left corner of the recreation center, Coated Nutrition is the newest restaurant to find its way onto Southern’s campus and joins Chic-fil-a as the only other restaurant on campus that stays open late, with its hours being 4-6 PM, Monday through Friday.
The shop sells a variety of different types of protein shakes and teas that are all under 300 calories. The protein shakes serve as a large, quick dose of protein and can serve as a meal replacement while teas have loads of antioxidants and vitamins to help with weightless and focus. The shakes come in more savory flavors like vanilla, king cake, and pecan turtle dove and, predictably, the teas come in more fruiter flavors like coconut, strawberry, and lemonade, “Ooohh, that’s actually really good, like something from Starbucks but better,” said Alesha Bethea after tasting the Bahama Mama.
As great as it all sounds, Coated Nutrition, unfortunately, bears the distinction of being the only restaurant on campus that does not accept a student’s declining balance, more commonly known as Jag Cash. With that being said, the teas are seven dollars and come in 20 ounces and the shakes are eight dollars and come in 16 ounces. The shakes also come with complementary, low-sugar and low calorie, whip cream and caramel drizzle, “The shake is really good, you can hardly taste the protein powder and it has the right consistency,” said Jeremy Williams, from Little Rock, Arkansas after trying a caramel cheesecake protein shake.
Being an educator himself, Jonathan Coats understands the plight of broke college students, but at the end of the day, he has a family to feed and a business to run. The equipment to read and accept Jag Cash is upwards of ten thousand dollars. On top of that, Southern University then takes a cut of each dollar spent. As a small business owner, Mr. Coats just couldn’t afford the equipment and, understandably, would rather keep a hundred percent of the profit, “The restaurants in the Union, Burger King and Chic-fil-a, they can afford to spend ten thousand on some equipment, but as a small business, it might take me ten years to pay that back.”
Not accepting Jag Cash, however, represents a huge loss in revenue for Mr. Coats as many students just won’t spend seven or eight dollars on a drink and those who would, can’t because they’re financially unable to. Jag Cash is the solution to both those problems as its Monopoly money; its only useful inside the game so who cares about how much something is. Mr. Coats sees the declining balance equipment as an opportunity to increase his revenue and hopes to begin accepting Jag Cash by this summer, “There’s a small business grant out there that I’ve been eyeing. If I am able to get it, I think that I’m going to buy that equipment.”

Gallery • 2 Photos

Full menu at Coated Nutrition (Courtesy Photo Jonathan Coats)