I first moved to Tulsa in 2004, and have seen the city grow exponentially in the food and drink scene. While this site will never serve as a review site for individual establishments, I do think it’s important to highlight the people and places that are doing great work in Tulsa.
Rather than rank and critique, I choose to only highlight the people and places I choose. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way.
As we all know, this situation is developing quickly and there is a lot of misinformation and anxiety surrounding the health and economic impacts of COVID-19. Most significantly for Tulsa, the executive order in which Mayor GT Bynum declared a civil emergency, leading to the…
Someone walks into a bar and orders a non-alcoholic drink. Immediately, assumptions begin to fly. Guests assume they’re a teetotaler. Bartenders worry they won’t tip well. Others assume they’re on the wagon, or pregnant. It’s only human to construct these narratives, but there is a problem with them.
From the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church to the Philcade, Tulsans are familiar with the influence of Art Deco on the architecture downtown. The design movement’s popularity intersected with an oil industry boom in the early 1900s, resulting in Tulsa’s high concentration of Art Deco-inspired architecture. What’s perhaps lesser known is that the Art Deco movement borrowed inspiration from a variety of aesthetics and cultures with the intent of creating a modern unified theme.
Since launching this site 5 years ago, it has continually evolved and the focus has been refined. Now I need your input. The articles I write are a reflection of my interests at that particular time. I constantly turn down opportunities from brands offering free products…
I recently had the privilege to speak with Simonson about his new book, current cocktail culture and MIX. Simonson has authored four cocktail books and regularly writes for The New York Times, PUNCH and Imbibe. His fourth book, The Martini Cocktail: A Meditation on the World’s Greatest Drink, with Recipes, will be released Sept. 17, 2019.
You know the tired club scene all too well. Bass thumps loudly from the inside as you wait in line to get in. Finally, the bouncer checks your ID and accepts your cover fee—a small toll paid to be seen at such a trendy spot. Once inside the dark chasm, you’re presented with mediocre drink options, sold on bottle service, and forced to dance to a spasmodic playlist because you’d rather not think about the time and money wasted if you’d just leave.
Whether designed intentionally or occurring through happenstance, bars have character, and developing that character requires time. When well-executed, it’s not that a single style of bar is better than another, rather that they all have a time and place. When envisioning The Tulsan, the owners settled on a simple concept—tailor the bar towards real, everyday people. The path to ensuring The Tulsan embodies that ethos has been anything but rushed.